Definitions of R & D : report with evidence.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
Date:
1990
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Definitions of R & D : report with evidence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    93/148 (page 91)
    8 February 1990] [Continued [Chairman contd.] 279. You do not for research and development? (Mr Lomas) No. 280. You do not know how significant it is? (Mr Mumford) We do use a lot of small firms. 281. Yes, but I wonder if there is any way of guessing what proportion is lost in that? (Mr Crowther) About one-eighth of the total procurement expenditure goes to small firms. Lord Gregson 282. We have had evidence that very few firms with 200 employees do very little R&D at all. They do not do it. The great majority are subcontracted. (Mr Mumford) Yes, but a subcontractor might well be supporting a prime contract which is R&D. (Mr Humphries) | can give an example—although it might be on the borderline of the firms with 200 employees—lI visited a year or so ago a firm which was carrying out casting operations and they developed their techniques for some very demanding requirements for the Ministry of Defence. They were able to cast alloys that nobody had cast before with wall thicknesses that nobody had done before. They developed that for the Ministry of Defence. I am sure that the prime-contractor thought it was very ordinary, very trivial stuff but this was, to them, a very important piece of innovative work. 283. That is a very interesting anecdotal account, but what about the other 6,000 firms? If you are referring to figures that you are talking about, £2.5bn, one little company doing one little job is a drop in the ocean. It does not affect the sort of figures we are dealing with. What about the other 6,000 small companies; most of them are subcontract companies. (Mr Crowther) We do know we spend over a million pounds a year specifically on the Small Firm Research Initiative which is directed specifically to provide opportunities for small firms to get involved in research. 284. This is out of the £2.5bn? (Mr Crowther) That is the total R&D budget, £2.3bn; the total research budget, which is the proper comparator here, is some £400m. Chairman 285. I was going to ask the question: do you see advantage in the figures for civil R&D and the figures for defence R&D being more comparable than they seem to be—but are you maintaining that they are in fact comparable, that you are working on more or less the same definitions and, therefore, they can be compared? (Mr 'Mumford) The Government certainly seeks to present the R&D figures on a comparable basis in carrying out its Annual Review which is put forward as a composite of figures. I think one does have to recognise that defence R&D serves a different purpose from civil R&D. We area large procurement organisation. The whole of defence R&D is defence procurement. With the civil departments most of their research activities are in support of where they have sponsorship roles, regulatory roles or statutory roles. Very few other departments have big procurement budgets and responsibilities, so there is a difference there. I suspect that the civil departments perhaps have an easier job in extracting Frascati information than we do. The scale of their research establishments is very much smaller than ours. Certainly the aim of the Cabinet Office on behalf of the Government is to present figures on a comparable basis. 286. You are not prepared to admit that there is a significant element in your development figure which is not properly classified as development under Frascati? (Mr Mumford) No, I have no basis for making such an assertion at this stage. 287. I think we will have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Mr Mumford. I understand this is your swan song? (Mr Mumford) Yes, I am retiring tomorrow. Chairman] We wish you very well in your retirement. Thank you very much indeed.