[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 212 (Tuesday, November 3, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 67703-67704]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-27962]


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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.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0912.
    Form Number(s): BRDI-1, BRDI-1(S).
    Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved collection.
    Number of Respondents: BRDI-1 = 7,000; BRDI-1(S) = 38,000.
    Average Hours per Response: BRDI-1 = 15 hours; BRDI-1(S) = 38 
minutes.
    Burden Hours: 126,500.
    Needs and Uses: The Census Bureau is requesting clearance to 
conduct the Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS) for the 2015-
2017 survey years with the revisions outlined in this document. 
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.
    The National Science Foundation Act of 1950 as amended authorizes 
and directs the National Science Foundation (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.'' One of the methods used by NSF to fulfill this mandate is 
The Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS)--the primary federal 
source of information on R&D in the business sector. NSF together with 
the Census Bureau, the collecting and compiling agent, analyze the data 
and publish the resulting statistics.
    NSF has published annual R&D statistics collected from the Survey 
of Industrial Research and Development (1953-2007) and BRDIS (2008-
2014) for 61 years. The results of the surveys 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.
    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 and intellectual property 
protection activities.
    The following changes will be made to the 2015-2017 BRDIS compared 
to the 2014 BRDIS:
     Section 3: Adding question on domestic R&D performed by 
others and paid for by the Federal Government.
     Section 4: Deleting four questions on R&D with technology 
focus of photonics/optics.
     Section 4: Adding four questions on the Research/
Development split for foreign R&D.
    Information from BRDIS will continue to support the America 
COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 as well as other R&D-related 
initiatives introduced during the clearance period. Other initiatives 
that have used BRDIS statistics include: The Innovation Measurement--
Tracking the State of Innovation in the American Economy (U.S. 
Department of Commerce); Science of Science and Innovation Policy 
(NSF); and Rising Above the Gathering Storm (National Research 
Council).
    Policy officials from many Federal agencies rely on these 
statistics for essential information. Businesses and trade 
organizations rely on BRDIS data to benchmark their industry's 
performance against others. For example, total U.S. R&D expenditures 
statistics have been used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to 
update the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) and, in fact, 
the BEA recently has recognized and incorporated R&D as fixed 
investment in the NIPA. Accurate R&D data are needed to continue the 
development and effect subsequent updates to this detailed satellite 
account. Also, NSF, BEA and the Census Bureau periodically update a 
data linking project that utilizes BRDIS data to augment global R&D 
investment information that is obtained from BEA's Foreign Direct 
Investment (FDI) and U.S. Direct Investment Abroad (USDIA) surveys. 
Further, the Census Bureau links data collected by BRDIS 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.
    Individuals and organizations access the survey statistics via the 
Internet in annual InfoBriefs published by NSF's

[[Page 67704]]

National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) that 
announce the availability of statistics from each cycle of BRDIS and 
detailed statistical table reports that contain all of the statistics 
NSF produces from BRDIS. Information about the kinds of projects that 
rely on statistics from BRDIS is available from internal records of 
NSF's NCSES. In addition, survey statistics are regularly cited 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.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13, United States Code, Sections 8(b), 131, 
and 182, and Title 42, United States Code, Sections 1861-76 (National 
Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended).
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of Commerce 
collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to [email protected] or fax to (202)395-5806.

    Dated: October 29, 2015.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2015-27962 Filed 11-2-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-07-P