Statistics Sweden

Economic Statistics and Analysis

Innovation, Business sector production and Research Statistics

Statistics Sweden
Att. Andres Quinones
ESA/NUP/INF
Solna strandväg 86, Solna
SWEDEN

Statistics on Government Budget Allocations for R&D (GBARD) measure government support to research and development (R&D) activities, and thereby provide information about the priority governments give to different public R&D funding activities. This type of funder-based approach for reporting R&D involves identifying all the budget items that may support R&D activities and measuring or estimating their R&D content.

Main concepts and definitions used for the production of R&D statistics are given by the OECD (2015), Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development, The Measurement of Scientific, Technological and Innovation Activities (FM 2015, Chapter 12), which is the internationally recognised standard methodology for collecting R&D statistics and by Eurostat’s European Business Statistics Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics (EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics).

Since the beginning of 2021, the collection of R&D statistics is based on Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020.

The Regulation sets the framework for the collection of R&D statistics and specifies the main variables of interest and their breakdowns at predefined level of detail (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (europa.eu)).

Statistics on science, technology and innovation were collected until the end of 2020 based on Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2012/995 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology.

Distribution by socioeconomic objectives (SEO) is based on the Nomenclature for the Analysis and Comparisons of Scientific Programmes and Budgets (NABS) at one digit level.

See below.

GBARD statistics are assumed to report detailed data on all the government's budget items that may support R&D activities and to measure or estimate their R&D content. For the purposes of GBARD, the Government sector comprises (a) the central (federal) government, (b) regional (state) government and (c) local (municipal) government subsectors (FM2015, Chapter 12).

Not requested.

Budget item/appropriation.

See below.

The target population is the population for which inferences are made. The frame (or frames, as sometimes several frames are used) is a device that permits access to population units. The frame population is the set of population units, which can be accessed through the frame and the survey data really refer to this population.

Sweden.

Not requested. See point 5.

Not requested. The base year for the unit Purchasing Power Standard (PPS) and PPS per inhabitant at constant prices is currently 2005. All calculations of non-basic unit (national currencies) are done by Eurostat.

Not requested.

a) Calendar year: 2021

b) Fiscal year: Does not apply. Reference year always equals the calendar year.

    Start month:

    End month:

See below.

Since the beginning of 2021, GBARD statistics are based on Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics. The Regulation sets the framework for the collection of R&D statistics and specifies the main variables of interest and their breakdowns at predefined level of detail.  GBARD statistics were based until the end of 2020 on the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2012/995 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology.

No R&D specific legislation at the national level.

All statistical data collection and production of official statistics is regulated by the Official Statistics Act (2001:99) and the Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100). 

-          Frascati Manual 2015, Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development

-          EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics

Not requested.

Confidentiality, being one of the process quality components, concerns the privacy of data providers (households, enterprises, administrations and other respondents), the confidentiality of the information they provide and the extent of its use for statistical purposes.

A property of data indicating the extent to which their unauthorised disclosure could be prejudicial or harmful to the interest of the source or other relevant parties.

a)       Confidentiality protection required by law: According to national law, Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400), data may only be published in a way that no conclusions on individual units can be drawn. In practice, this does not apply to GBARD since it is based on raw data from government agencies (and therefore not protected by confidentiality according to national law) and other adminstrative data.

b)       Confidentiality commitments of survey staff: The major policy in place to ensure confidentiality and prevent unauthorised disclosure of data that identify a person or economic entity is the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400). There are also specific conditions concerning the confidentiality of official statistics in the Official Statistics Act (2001:99). 

GBARD data are publicly available. No confidentiality precautions needs to be made.

The release policy and the release calendar are publicly available at Statistics Sweden's website.

Preliminary GBARD 2021 was published nationally on 21 april 2021. No final data has been published sincce preliminary GBARD is considered as final as well.

See annex.

Statistics Sweden's release policy states that all statistics must be made available to all users equally and at the same time. Statistics are always released at 8.00 am on weekdays. Users are also informed of the availability of new statistics by news releases on Statistics Sweden's website. It is possible for users to subscribe to get e-mail notifications when new statistics within a certain subject area are released. Statistics are released by being made available in the statistical database. The release policy is available on Statistics Sweden's website.

Annually.

See below.

1) Y - Yes, N – No

See below.

1) Y – Yes, N - No 

Data at national level is available in electronic publications on Statistics Sweden’s webpage and in the statistical database.

Not requested.

See below.

See below.

Not requested.

1) Y – Yes, N - No 

GBARD methodology is described in the national documentation on methodology and is titled "Statistikens framställning" (translates to Statistical production).

Not requested.

The main documentation on quality management is titled Kvalitetsdeklaration (translates to Quality report) and is updated when new statistcs are published. This documentation is only available in Swedish.

The quality management process at Statistics Sweden is described in a Quality policy. There is also a handbook on quality in official statistics which provides guidance concerning quality management and definitions and guidance on the quality criteria. The following quality criteria for official statistics are regulated by the Official Statistics Act (2001:99) and are the same as are reported in this document:

- Relevance
- Accuracy
- Timeliness
- Punctuality
- Availability and clarity
- Comparability
- Coherence

The framework for quality assurance set out in the Quality policy is a cyclic process with four steps. First is understanding legal requirements and user needs. Second is ensured processes. The third step is evaluation and analysis followed by improvement and development as the fourth step. The first step requires a good dialog with users of the statistics. One forum for such dialog is the User Council for R&D statistics. The second step is based on standardised, efficient, and secure processes which are ensured partly by automatization and digitalisation, partly by following the standardised methods, tools and processes set up for statistical production and found in Statistikproduktionsstödet (translates to the Statistical Production Guide). The third step means that the production processes continuously need to be evaluated. One way in which this done is by a yearly survey to all producers of official statics in which they evaluate the quality of the statistics produced or published during the year. Based on the results of the evaluations, decisions are made concerning which improvement and development activities are to be prioritised over the coming period, constituting the fourth and final step before the process begins again at the first step.

The overal quality of the national GBARD methodology is considered good. The methodology used is based on the Frascati Manual recommendations and Eurostat’s European Business Statistics Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics (EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics).

The main activities undertaken in order to assure a high quality of GBARD statistics include matching the respondents' answers to the budget appropriations. Also responses from the previous rounds are checked to make sure that they are in-line with the budget appropriations. Since total GBARD is mainly based on a survey of approximately 70 goverment agencies, a lot of resources are spent on getting a good response rate, usually >95 percent.

See below.

1)       Users' class codification

1- Institutions:
• European level: Commission (DGs, Secretariat General), Council, European Parliament, ECB, other European agencies etc.
• in Member States, at the national or regional level: Ministries of Economy or Finance, other ministries (for sectoral comparisons), National Statistical Institutes and other statistical agencies (norms, training, etc.), and
• International organisations: OECD, UN, IMF, ILO, etc.

2- Social actors: Employers’ associations, trade unions, lobbies, among others, at the European, national or regional level.

3- Media: International or regional media – specialized or for the general public – interested both in figures and analyses or comments. The media are the main channels of statistics to the general public.

4- Researchers and students (Researchers and students need statistics, analyses, ad hoc services, access to specific data.)

5- Enterprises or businesses (Either for their own market analysis, their marketing strategy (large enterprises) or because they offer consultancy services)

6- Other (User class defined for national purposes, different from the previous classes.)

To evaluate if users' needs have been satisfied, the best way is to use user satisfaction surveys.

See below.

19 out of 19  required data cells are provided.

Completeness is assessed via comparison of the data delivered against the requirements of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197.

1)  Criteria: Obligatory data (provisional budget and final budget). Only 'Very Good' = 100% and 'Very Poor' <100% apply.

2)  Criteria: Optional data (final budget). 'Very Good' = 100%; 'Good' = >75%;'Satisfactory' 50 to 75%%; 'Poor' 25 to 50%; 'Very Poor' 0 to 25%.

See below.

1) Availability of the data: N: No, data are not available, Y: Yes, data are available + start year.

2) Time of compilation: T is assumed to represent the end of reference period, x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is compiled

1) Availability of the data: N: No, data are not available, Y: Yes, data are available + start year.

2) Time of compilation: T is assumed to represent the end of reference period, x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is compiled

1) Stage: P - provisional, F - final. 

2) Availability of the data: No, data are not available, Y: Yes, data are available + start year.

3) Time of compilation: T is assumed to represent the end of reference period, x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is compiled

Accuracy in the statistical sense denotes the closeness of computations or estimates to the exact or true values. Statistics are not equal with the true values because of variability (the statistics change from implementation to implementation of the survey due to random effects) and bias (the average of the possible values of the statistics from implementation to implementation is not equal to the true value due to systematic effects).

Several types of statistical errors occur during the survey process. The following typology of errors has been adopted:

1. Sampling errors. These only affect sample surveys. They are due to the fact that only a subset of the population, usually randomly selected, is enumerated.

2. Non-sampling errors. Non-sampling errors affect sample surveys and complete enumerations alike and comprise:

a) Coverage errors,

b) Measurement errors,

c) Non response errors and

d) Processing errors.

Model assumption errors should be treated under the heading of the respective error they are trying to reduce.

1)  Ranking of the type(s) of errors that result in over/under-estimation, from the most important source of error (1) to the least important source of error (5) In the event that errors of a particular type do not exist, is used the sign ‘-‘.

2)  The perceived direction of the ‘overall’ error using the signs “+” for over estimation, “-” for under estimation and “+/-” when assumption of the direction of the error cannot be made for GBARD.

1) High level of coverage (At least all national or federal ministries and the ministries and agencies responsible for R&D funding at state or regional level). High rate of response (>90%) in data collection. All figures broken down by NABS.  

2) If at least one out of the three criteria described above would not be fully met.

3) In the event that the rate of response would be lower than 80% even by meeting the two remaining criteria.

4) In the event that the average rate of response would be lower than 70% and at least one of the two remaining criteria would not be met.

5) If all the three criteria described above are not met.

Not requested.

Not requested.

Non-sampling errors occur in all phases of a survey. They add to the sampling errors (if present) and contribute to decreasing overall accuracy. It is important to assess their relative weight in the total error and devote appropriate resources for their control and assessment.

Coverage errors are due to divergences between the target population and the frame population. The frame population is the set of target population members that has a chance to be selected into the survey sample. It is a listing of all items in the population from which the sample is drawn that contains contact details as well as sufficient information to perform stratification and sampling.

a)       Description/assessment of coverage errors: None. Funding from local government is not included in the target population and therefore there is no divergence between the target population and the frame population.

b)      Measures taken to reduce their effect: Not applicable.

0 %. GBARD data are collected only from government agencies that are included in central government and the govermnetn sector.

Not requested.

Measurement errors occur during data collection and generate bias by recording values different than the true ones. The survey questionnaire used for data collection may have led to the recording of wrong values.

a)       Description/assessment of measurement errors: No known systematic measurment errors when collecting data to compile total preliminary GBARD. To break down GBARD totals by NABS 2007, coefficients are used which are drawn from the most recent official R&D performers’ survey (GOV & HES) survey. The measurment erros in those surveys are estimated to be low.

b)      Measures taken to reduce their effect: Even though the measurment error is not systematic for total GBARD there is always som random elements of measurment error. In order to reduce this uncertainty a text analysis of the government bill is carried out in order to verify (if it available ) if levels are the same as the respondent's.

Non response errors: occur when a survey failed to collect data on all survey variables from all the population units designated for data collection in a sample or complete enumeration.

a) Problems in obtaining data from targeted information providers: Census. Response rate 100 %.

b) Measures taken to reduce their effect: Two e-mail reminders. Respondents are if needed contacted also by phone in order to get response rate 100%.

c) Effect of non-response errors on the produced statistics:

Not requested.

Not requested.

Between data collection and the beginning of statistical analysis, data must undergo a certain processing: coding, data entry, data editing, imputation, etc. Errors introduced at these stages are called processing errors. Data editing identifies inconsistencies or errors in the data.

a)       Data processing and editing processes: After data has been collected, it is checked for inconsistencies.

b)      Description of errors: No known processing erros are known

c)       Measures taken to reduce their effect: The data processing has been significantly automated and thus errors due to the human factor has been reduced significantly.

Model assumption errors occur when the assumptions made for the estimation of parameters, models, the testing of statistical hypotheses, etc., are violated. As a result, the quality of the resulting statistics is affected (e.g. degrees of confidence might be inflated).

Description/assessment: Modell assumptions are made in the processing of data to derive coefficients to distribute GBARD by NABS. The coefficients are derived based on the data fro the latest GPV & HES surveys. For GBARD statistics, the coefficients for odd and even reference years are based on data with a reference year two and three years earlier. This is because the R&D surveys are only carried out every two years and with one year lag. The uncertainty is not only caused by the time lag but also to the uncertainty which can be found in the information reported by the goverment agencies and HES institutions in the GOV & HES surveys. The distribution by socio-economic objectivess should the primary purpose pursued by the central government. Units that only perform intramural R&D and receive funding from the central government budget does not necessarily know what objective is actually pursued but classifies it from a content perspective.

Timeliness and punctuality refer to time and dates, but in a different manner: the timeliness of statistics reflects the length of time between their availability and the event or phenomenon they describe. Punctuality refers to the time lag between the release date of the data and the target date on which they should have been delivered, with reference to dates announced in the official release calendar.

Date of first release of national data: 2021-04-21 (T-8)

Date of first release of national data: No final data was published. Final GBARD is estimated to be the same as preliminary GBARD.

Punctuality refers to the time lag between the release date of data and the target date on which they were scheduled for release as announced officially.

Punctuality of time schedule of data release = (Actual date of the data release) - (Scheduled date of the data release)

See below.

Not requested.

The following table lists a number of key survey concepts and conceptual issues; it gives reference to the Commission Regulation No 2020/1197, Frascati manual and the EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics paragraphs with recommendations about these concepts / issues.

GBARD encompass all spending allocations met from sources of government revenue foreseen within the budget, such as taxation. Spending allocations by extra-budgetary government entities are within the scope only to the extent that their funds are allocated through the budgetary process (FM2015 §12.9). The following table lists a number of key methodological issues, which may affect the international comparability of national GBARD statistics.

See below.

See below.

1)       Breaks years are years for which data are not fully comparable to the previous period.

GBARD includes only funds from central government ("statsbudgeten") and excludes direct financing by central/local government authorities and by other public sector sources. For the same reference year, it is possible to compare GBARD with GERD funded by the government (government financed GERD) to some extent. Since GBARD includes payments to R&D performance in the rest of the world and only includes funds from central government, there will be differences. It is possible to compile GERD funded by central government which would improve the comparability.

Not requested.

Not requested.

This part compares GBARD statistics from the provisional and final budget for the reference year.

The assessment of costs associated with a statistical product is a rather complicated task since there must exist a mechanism for appointing portions of shared costs (for instance shared IT resources and dissemination channels) and overheads (office space, utility bills etc). The assessment must become detailed and clear enough so that international comparisons among agencies of different structures are feasible. 

1)       The shares of the figures given in the first column that are accounted for by payments to private firms or other Government agencies.

1)        T = the time required to provide the information, including time spent assembling information prior to completing a form or taking part in interview and the time taken up by any subsequent contacts after receipt of the questionnaire (‘Re-contact time’)

Statistics Sweden's revision policy covers three types of revisions: planned and reoccuring revisions, revisions due to conceptual and/or methodological changes and corrections.

1. Planned and reoccuring revisions - In order to accommodate user timeliness needs, Statistics Sweden publisch preliminary figures. These figures are then revised once or several times before final data are released. In case of planned revisions, users will be informed of the number of revisions as well as the revision dates.

2. Revisions due to conceptual and/or methodological changes - Methodological changes can have systematic effects on the statistics. Concepts, definitions or classifications can be changed in order to better capture the target variables. In case of such changes, and if deemed necessary and possible, revisions of earlier final data can be made in order to produce comparable time series. Users will be informed of revisions of this kind in advance, with an explanation of why the revision is necessary.

3. Corrections - In case of errors in published data, corrections can be made. When an error has been identified, the need for correction is evaluated without delay based on the magnitude of the error and the importance of the statistics. Corrections are always published in a clear and easily accessible manner, with information on why the correction is necessary.

Not requested.

Not requested.

a)       Provisional data: Direct data collection (GBARD survey, electronic questionnaire) and administrative data in the form of:  The budget bill, detailed table of the central government budget, data from the latest GOV & HES R&D surveys. The GBARD survey and budget data is used to complie total GBARD. Data from the GOV & HES surveys is used to derive coefficents to distribute total GBARD by socioeconomic objectives (NABS 2007). Budgetdata is also used to distribute GBARD by socioeconomic objectives if no coeffcient can de derived for a particular budget item/appropriation with elements of R&D.

b)      Final data: Same as provisional GBARD

c)       General University Funds (GUF): Directly identified in the budget data(respective budget items available). Coefficients derived the latest R&D HES survey is used to determine R&D content in GUF. Coefficnets also derived from the R&D HES survey to distribute NABS12 (GUF) by FORD.

See 12.3.3.

See below.

1) Time of data collection (T+x): T is assumed to represent the end of reference period. x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is collected.

Coefficients are derived from the the latest R&D survey that cover the HES sector to determine the R&D content i GUF and to break down NABS12 by FORD. See also 18.3.1.

- Checking and following up the response rates.

- Comparing the statistics with previous cycles, usually T-1 and T-2.

- Investigating inconsistencies in the statistics.

- Performing micro and macro data editing.

See below.

No impuations was performed.

See below.

Not requested.

Not requested.