Abstract
THE statistical survey of scientific and technical research in British industry recently made by the Industrial Research Secretariat of the Federation of British Industries, while admittedly incomplete, is a valuable supplement to the survey of expenditure on research and development which formed the subject of the Third Report of the Select Committee on Estimates for the Session 1946–47 (132–1. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1947. 6s. net). The Federation's report is based on the 471 replies received to about nine hundred copies of a questionnaire circulated to industrial firms known or thought likely to be carrying out research. It is estimated that the survey covers some seventy-five per cent of the industrial research effort of Great Britain, although probably not more than fifty per cent of the firms carrying out research. On this assumption the total annual expenditure by industry on research and development within its own establishments is of the order of thirty million pounds, which represents about two thirds of one per cent of the total annual value of British manufacture.
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Scientific Research and Public Expenditure. Nature 160, 849–851 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160849a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160849a0