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Research and development

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Description of the issue
The recording of research and development (R&D) expenditure as gross capital formation according to the 2008 SNA has raised some practical implementation issues, which may affect the international comparability of the national accounts R&D estimates. An EU Task Force was established to investigate these implementation issues.

The mandate of this Task Force was to test the reliability of the R&D data; to exchange experience on the basis of the data transmitted by EU Member States and the methods used in the various countries; to identify the major practical difficulties; and to propose solutions to these difficulties.

The AEG discussed the findings of the Task Force at its 7th meeting and 8th meeting. Detailed guidance on the implementation of the concept of research and development in terms of capital formation is provided in the OECD Handbook on Deriving Capital Measures of Intellectual Property Products (Paris, 2010) and in the Eurostat Manual on Measuring Research and Development in ESA 2010 (2014 ed.).

This issue is related to issue 30 of the Research Agenda.