[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 204 (Friday, October 21, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65494-65495]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-27254]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 
U.S.C. chapter 35).
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: Business R&D and Innovation Survey.
    Form Number(s): BRDI-1, BRDI-1A.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0912.
    Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved collection.
    Burden Hours: 130,855.
    Number of Respondents: 43,000.
    Average Hours per Response: 3 hours.
    Needs and Uses: The National Science Foundation Act of 1950 as 
amended authorizes and directs NSF ``* * * to provide a central 
clearinghouse for the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data 
on scientific and engineering resources and to provide a source of 
information for policy formulation by other agencies of the Federal 
government.'' The Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS) is the 
vehicle with which NSF carries out the business portion of this 
mandate. NSF together with the Census Bureau, the collecting and 
compiling agent, analyze the data and publish the resulting statistics.
    Companies are the major performers of research and development 
(R&D) in the United States, accounting for over 70 percent of total 
U.S. R&D outlays each year. A consistent business R&D information base 
is essential to government officials formulating public policy, 
industry personnel involved in corporate planning, and members of the 
academic community conducting research. To develop policies designed to 
promote and enhance science and technology, past trends and the present 
status of R&D must be known and analyzed. Without comprehensive 
business R&D statistics, it would be impossible to evaluate the health 
of science and technology in the United States or to make comparisons 
between the technological progress of our country and that of other 
nations.
    NSF has published annual R&D statistics collected from the Survey 
of Industrial Research and Development (1953-2007) and BRDIS (2008-
2010) for more than 50 years. The results of the survey are used to 
assess trends in R&D expenditures by industry sector, investigate 
productivity determinants, formulate science and tax policy, and 
compare individual company performance with industry averages. This 
survey is the Nation's primary source for international comparative 
statistics on business R&D spending.
    The 2011 BRDIS will continue to collect the following types of 
information:
     R&D expense based on accounting standards.
     Worldwide R&D of domestic companies.
     Business segment detail.
     R&D related capital expenditures.
     Detailed data about the R&D workforce.
     R&D strategy and data on the potential impact of R&D on 
the market.
     R&D directed to application areas of particular national 
interest.
     Data measuring innovation, intellectual property 
protection activities and technology transfer.
    The following changes will be made to the 2011 BRDIS from the 2010 
BRDIS.
     Section 7: R&D Time Frame and R&D Product Life will be 
deleted. This section was only collected in 2010 at the request of the 
Bureau of Economic Analysis.
     The 2011 BRDIS will only have one short form (BRDI-1A). 
The 2010 BRDIS included two versions of the short form to conduct a 
test on the innovation data collection.
    Starting in 2009, BRDIS decreased the number of long forms mailed 
from approximately 5,000 to 3,000. This was done based on a study done 
during the processing of the 2008 BRDIS pilot. The data showed that the 
imputation rate on the key data variables would not be significantly 
impacted by reducing the number of long forms for the details that are 
only collected on the long forms. Also, R&D activity in the U.S. is 
highly concentrated to a relatively small number of large firms so the 
potential benefit in the reduction of burden was deemed to outweigh the 
need to collect all of the detail from smaller R&D performing firms.
    Policy officials from many Federal agencies rely on these 
statistics for essential information. For example, total U.S. R&D 
expenditures statistics have been used by the Bureau of Economic 
Analysis (BEA) to update the System of National Accounts and, in fact, 
the BEA recently has established a separate R&D satellite account in 
the System. Accurate R&D data are needed to continue the development 
and effect subsequent updates to this detailed satellite account. Also, 
a data linking project has been designed to augment the Foreign Direct 
Investment (FDI) data collected by BEA. The initial attempt to link the 
SIRD data with BEA's FDI benchmark files was successful, and plans now 
call for the annual linkage of the R&D data to the Foreign Direct 
Investment (FDI) and U.S. Direct Investment Abroad (USDIA) data. 
Further, the Census Bureau links data collected by the Survey with 
other statistical files. At the Census Bureau, historical company-level 
R&D data are linked to a file that contains information on the outputs 
and inputs of companies' manufacturing plants. Researchers are able to 
analyze the relationships between R&D funding and other economic 
variables by using micro-level data.
    Many individuals and organizations access the survey statistics via 
the Internet and hundreds have asked to have their names placed on the 
mailing list for a paper copy of the annual SRS InfoBrief that 
announces the availability of statistics from each cycle of the Survey. 
Information about the kinds of projects that rely on statistics from 
the Survey is available from internal records of NSF's Division of 
Science Resources Statistics (SRS). In addition, survey statistics are 
regularly printed in trade publications and many researchers use the 
survey statistics from these secondary sources without directly 
contacting NSF or the Census Bureau.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C., Sections 182, 224, and 225.
    OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.
    Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained 
by calling or writing Diana Hynek, Departmental Paperwork Clearance 
Officer, (202) 482-0266, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th and 
Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet at 
[email protected]).

[[Page 65495]]

    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to Brian Harris-Kojetin, OMB Desk Officer either by fax (202-395-7245) 
or e-mail ([email protected]).

    Dated: October 17, 2011.
Gwellnar Banks,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2011-27254 Filed 10-20-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P