Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) Survey 2023

The survey is administered both to companies known to have performed R&D and to companies with no known history of R&D activity. The BERD Survey has been designed to provide detailed statistics on global and domestic R&D expenditures of companies located in the United States and on these companies' R&D employees.

The survey is sent to a single coordinator within each company, but it is organized into sections that help the coordinator collect specific types of information from different experts in the company (human resources, accounting, R&D managers, etc.). Foreign-owned companies are instructed to report only for company operations owned by the U.S. subsidiary and, for purposes of the survey, to treat the U.S. subsidiary's foreign owners as if they were unrelated third parties.

The target population for the BERD Survey consists of all for-profit companies that have 10 or more paid employees in the United States, that have at least one establishment located in the United States that is in business during the survey year, and that are classified in certain industries based on the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), with a particular focus on those companies that perform R&D in the United States.

The Business Register, a Census Bureau compilation that contains information on more than 8.7 million establishments with paid employees, serves as the primary input to the sampling frame from which the BERD Survey sample is selected. For a given company with more than one establishment, the prior year's annual payroll and employment data for its active establishments are summed to the company level.

The scope of the 2023 BERD Survey is limited to companies that (1) are in business primarily to make a profit; (2) are classified within a specific set of NAICS industries; (3) have 10 or more paid employees in the United States, based on employment on 12 March 2022; (4) have at least one establishment that is physically located in the United States and is in business at the end of calendar year 2023 (the time at which the Census Bureau finished the 2022 Business Register Processing); and (5) are not federally funded R&D centers.

Single-unit company records were extracted from the 2022 Business Register if the company had at least 10 paid employees in 2022 or, when employment information was unavailable, if the company's 2022 payroll was greater than or equal to $500,000. Companies were removed from the sampling frame if their NAICS codes were designated as agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting (NAICS 11); postal service (NAICS 491); educational services (NAICS 61); private households (NAICS 814); or public administration (NAICS 92); or if they were no longer in business or were nonprofits. Companies were also removed from the sampling frame if they were not located in the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia.

Records for active establishments from multiunit companies were extracted from the 2022 Business Register if the given establishment's 2022 payroll was greater than zero or if the establishment employed at least one person in 2022. Prior to creating records for multiunit companies from these establishments, establishments classified as postal service (NAICS 491), private households (NAICS 814), or public administration (NAICS 92) were removed, as were those that were not physically located in the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia. Unlike single-unit companies, establishments classified as agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting (NAICS 11) or educational services (NAICS 61) were not initially removed during the construction of multiunit company records. Establishments classified in NAICS 11 or NAICS 61 contributed to the classification of the multiunit companies, and their payroll could have been included in determining the company's measure of size. From the resulting set of multiunit companies, companies were removed from the sampling frame if they had fewer than 10 paid employees or if the payroll associated with their nonprofit establishments was greater than the payroll of their for-profit establishments.

For each company on the sampling frame, a measure of size was assigned. The measure of size for a given company was based on R&D, if R&D data from the past 5 years were available from (1) the BERD Survey, (2) online financial databases, (3) the Report of Organization conducted as part of the Company Organization Survey (in years not ending in "2" or "7") or as a supplement to the Economic Census (in years ending in "2" or "7"), or (4) qualified R&D expenses from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For all other companies, the measure of size was based on total annual payroll for 2022 from the Business Register.

The frame was first stratified by industry classification for sampling. Within each industry sampling group, the frame was split into the following two major groups:

• Known positives: Companies with past reported R&D greater than zero.
• Unknowns: Companies whose R&D activity was unknown. All companies within the unknown strata are assigned a measure of size based on total company payroll. Beginning in survey year 2021, companies with known zero R&D were combined with the unknown R&D group.

The motivation behind using these strata is that each contains companies that exhibit unique characteristics. Companies in the known positive stratum are likely to have R&D, whereas R&D is a rare characteristic for the unknown R&D stratum. For the 2023 BERD Survey, there were 32,000 companies in the known positive group and 1,125,000 companies in the unknown group, for a total of 1,157,000 companies (table A-1).

Across both groups (known positive and unknown), companies in select industries and companies that exhibited characteristics of having large R&D amounts, including those with the largest annual payroll, were selected for the sample with certainty (i.e., the probability of selection was equal to 1). The probability of selection for other companies in the known positive R&D and unknown R&D groups depended on their size, the number of companies selected, and the total size or number of companies in their strata. In the known positive R&D group, Pareto probability-proportional-to-size (PPS) sampling was used within each noncertainty industry stratum, where the probability of selection was proportional to the company's measure of size. In the unknown R&D group, Pareto PPS sampling was used within most industry strata; simple random sampling (SRS) was used instead of Pareto PPS for industries in which the number of companies in the sampling frame was high and the likelihood of R&D was low. For both the known positive and unknown groups, a separate stratum was created for companies with fewer than 25 employees, regardless of industry. Pareto PPS sampling was used within these strata. Each sampling stratum had a certainty and noncertainty portion (table A-2). The number of companies selected was based on a coefficient of variation constraint on the estimated sample total for the stratum and was adjusted, if necessary, to ensure that the minimum probability of selection is 0.05 for the known positive R&D group and one of six values for the unknown R&D group: 0.004, 0.01, or 0.02 for nonmanufacturing industries (NAICS other than 31-33) and incomplete manufacturers (incomplete NAICS beginning with 3), depending on the population size and likelihood of R&D; 0.04 for printing and related support activities manufacturing (NAICS 323), furniture and related product manufacturing (NAICS 337), and computer systems design and related services (NAICS 5415); 0.02 for the remaining manufacturing (NAICS 31-33) industries; and 0.05 for the companies with fewer than 25 employees. Within the unknown R&D group, a total of 32,500 companies had a known zero value for the measure of size based on R&D from prior survey response. The probability of selection for those companies was set to zero.

Once selected, each company was assigned a sampling weight equal to the reciprocal of its probability of selection for the sample. Companies that were selected for the sample with certainty were assigned sampling weights equal to 1, and companies that were selected using SRS or Pareto PPS sampling were assigned weights ranging from 1 to 250. A complete and detailed description of the sample design and estimation methodology is given in the annual BERD Survey methodology report available from NCSES.

Using the sample design parameters detailed above, a total of 46,000 companies were selected, of which 21,000 companies were in the known positive R&D group, and 25,000 companies were in the unknown R&D group (table A-3 and table A-4).

During the survey's annual contact update procedures, 100 large R&D performers from the 2022 sample were found that were not included on the 2023 sampling frame. The primary reasons for this were mergers, acquisitions, or other company structure changes that cause a difference between a company's current Business Register ID and its prior year survey ID-in this case, its ID in the 2022 BERD Survey file. To follow up with these companies, they were added to the 2023 sample with certainty, and 100 companies were mailed the same survey invitation as the other companies in the sample. Because it was expected that many of these records would not contribute to 2023 BERD Survey tabulations due to changes in company structure, these companies are not included in sampling frame counts or sample sizes (table A-5). A complete and detailed description of the selection of additional sampling units is given in the annual BERD Survey methodology report available from NCSES.

The statistics resulting from this survey are intended primarily as indicators of absolute levels of R&D spending and personnel. Nevertheless, the statistics are often taken to be a continuous time series prepared using the same collection, processing, and tabulation methods. Although estimating the business portion of the nation's R&D enterprise accurately has always been the goal, such strict uniformity has not been the case. Since the survey was first fielded, improvements have been made to increase the reliability of the statistics and to make the survey results more useful. To that end, past practices have been changed and new procedures have been instituted. Preservation of the comparability of the statistics has, however, been an important consideration in making these improvements. Nonetheless, changes to survey coverage and definitions, the industry classification system, estimation methods, and the procedure used to assign industry codes to multi-establishment companies, which are documented in the annual reports, may have affected the comparability of the statistics. Among the most demonstrable changes are those made to the questionnaires, and those changes are summarized below.

The following changes were made to the 2023 BERD Survey from the 2022 BERD Survey:

• Question on details of R&D performed by others was rotated back on.
• Question on activities with academia was rotated back on.
• Question on business code or codes in which the company performed R&D and was paid for by others was rotated back on.
• Question on federal R&D by government agency was rotated back on.
• Questions on R&D application areas were rotated back on.
• Questions on patents, intellectual property, and technology transfer were cycled off.

The following changes were made to the 2022 BERD Survey from the 2021 BERD Survey:

• Question on details of R&D performed by others was cycled off.
• Question on activities with academia was cycled off.
• Question on federal R&D by government agency was cycled off.
• Question on federal R&D by types of agreements was cycled off.
• Questions on R&D application areas were cycled off.
• Questions on patents, intellectual property, and technology transfer were rotated back on. The questions were last asked in survey year 2020, and there were no changes to the questions in survey year 2022.

The following changes were made to the 2021 BERD Survey from the 2020 BERD Survey:

• Question on details of R&D performed by others was rotated back on.
• Question on activities with academia was rotated back on.
• Question on business code or codes in which the company performed R&D and was paid for by others was rotated back on.
• Question on federal R&D by government agency was rotated back on.
• Question on federal R&D by types of agreements was rotated back on.
• Questions on assets were added to section 4. The capital expenditures questions were expanded, and the section was also renamed from "Capital Expenditures" to "Assets."
• Questions on R&D application areas were rotated back on.
• Questions on patents, intellectual property, and technology transfer were cycled off.

The following changes were made to the 2020 BERD Survey from the 2019 BERD Survey:

• Questions on the contact information of the person primarily responsible for completing each section were added to the end of each section.
• A follow-up question was added to the ownership question asking whether the new owner of the sampled company is a holding company or a private equity firm.
• Question on details of R&D performed by others was cycled off.
• Question on activities with academia was cycled off.
• Question on business code or codes in which the company performed R&D and was paid for by others was cycled off.
• Question on federal R&D by government agency was cycled off.
• Question on federal R&D by types of agreements was cycled off.
• Question on source of funds for domestic R&D funded by others was added to the section 3 worksheet.
• Questions on R&D application areas were cycled off.
• Questions on patents, intellectual property, and technology transfer were rotated back on.

The following changes were made to the 2019 BERD Survey from the 2018 BRDS:

• Questions on patents, intellectual property, and technology transfer were cycled off.
• A question on filing for state tax credit for research activities in 2019 was added.

The following changes were made to the 2018 BRDS from the 2017 BRDS:

• A question on land acquisition capital expenditures for R&D operations was added.
• Questions related to R&D on artificial intelligence (AI) were added.
• Questions asking for country and state location of employees and R&D employees were added.
• A question asking for counts of temporary and leased employees working on R&D was added.

The following changes were made to the 2017 BRDS from the 2016 BRDIS:

• Questions on product and process innovation were removed.
• A question on whether R&D paid for by the company included customer-sponsored R&D was added.
• Questions on R&D funded by foreign governments or agencies and R&D funded by universities and colleges located outside the United States were added.
• A question on whether any capital expenditures for R&D were funded, paid for, or reimbursed by others not owned by your company was added.

The following changes were made to the 2016 BRDIS from the 2015 BRDIS:

• Questions on royalties and licensing fees were added to both the R&D paid for by the company and the R&D paid for by others type-of-cost sections.
• Questions on the type of worldwide R&D paid for by the company were added to Form BRDI-1(S).
• Questions on the type of worldwide R&D paid for by others were added to Form BRDI-1(S).
• A question on all other contract R&D services paid for by customers was added to Form BRDI-1(S).
• A question on R&D performed by universities, colleges, and academic researchers located inside the United States was added, while a question on R&D performed by foreign governments was removed.
• A question on R&D funded by universities, colleges, and academic researchers located inside the United States was added, while a question on R&D funded by foreign governments was removed.
• A question on whether utility patent sales and licensing revenues were received from companies or organizations outside the United States was added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on whether utility patent purchases and licensing payments were made to companies or organizations outside the United States was added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on whether the company filed for the tax credit for increasing research activities (IRS Form 6765) in tax year 2016 was added to Form BRDI-1.
• Questions on the importance of intellectual property protections were removed.

The following changes were made to the 2015 BRDIS from the 2014 BRDIS:

• A question on phase IV clinical trials was added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on R&D performed by others that was paid for by U.S. federal government agencies or laboratories was added to Form BRDI-1.
• Questions on the type of foreign R&D paid for and performed by the company were added to Form BRDI-1.
• Questions on the type of foreign R&D performed by the company but paid for by others were added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on nonprovisional utility patents was added to Form BRDI-1.
• Questions related to R&D in photonics and optics application areas were removed from Form BRDI-1.

The following changes were made to the 2014 BRDIS from the 2013 BRDIS:

• A question on monetary gifts to universities or colleges restricted to supporting R&D was added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on revenue received from patent licensing was added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on purchasing patents from others was added to Form BRDI-1.
• A question on licensing patents from others was added to Form BRDI-1.
• One business code was added to the list of business codes collected on the survey: 33333, digital cameras manufacturing. In prior years, this line of business was included in the business code 33412, computers and peripheral equipment manufacturing and magnetic and optical media.
• Questions related to patenting were removed from Form BRDI-1(S).
• Questions related to innovation were added to Form BRDI-1(S).

The following changes were made to the 2013 BRDIS from the 2012 BRDIS:

• The list of countries for which foreign R&D performance data were collected was expanded by three: Hungary, Luxembourg, and Norway.
• A question was restored asking the amount of R&D that the company plans to recoup through indirect charges on U.S. federal government contracts (independent R&D). This question was last asked on the 2010 BRDIS.
• Questions on R&D for software products and R&D for embedded software were combined.
• A question on R&D for software products and embedded software paid for by the federal government was added.
• A question related to the educational attainment of scientists and engineers was restored. This question was last asked on the 2010 BRDIS.
• Two business codes were added to the list of business codes collected on the survey: 32542, biotechnology-based pharmaceutical and biological products (except diagnostics), and 51801, cloud computing applications and Internet-based software services.
• Delinquent companies in the known positive R&D stratum for the past two survey cycles were sent Form BRD-1(S) to see if they would report at least the high-level numbers.

For 2012, a much shorter (8-page) version of the short form, BRD-1(S), was implemented. The form included 19 high-level-detail items on worldwide sales; domestic sales; R&D expenses funded both by the company and by others; employment both worldwide and domestic, including R&D employment; and patents applied for and issued. Companies that reported $1 million or more of domestic R&D performance were then sent the long form (BRDI-1) for additional details. The BRD-1(S) form was sent to companies in the unknown and known zero R&D strata. In section 2, the questionnaire collected the additional detail categories for capital expenditures. In section 3, four agencies were added to the type of agency question so as to reduce the amount reported in the "all other" category. In section 4, the percentage of R&D that was directed toward business areas or product lines new to the respondent's company and also the percentages that pertain to defense applications, health or medical applications, or agricultural applications were added for R&D funded by the company and R&D funded by others.

For the 2011 data collection, the innovation questions and instructions in section 1 were changed based on the results of the 2010 experiment. Cycling continued for data items that were not needed every year. The survey was expanded in several ways to address data gaps: the list of countries in which companies could report foreign R&D performance was expanded, a question was added to collect intracompany R&D transactions, and questions were added about companies' second-largest R&D location. In addition, questions pertaining to full-time equivalent (FTE) R&D scientists and engineers were revised to improve respondent understanding of survey concepts.

For the 2010 data collection, the most notable changes made to the questionnaire were the inclusion of a one-time section (section 7) on R&D time frame and R&D product life, the inclusion of an experiment testing the impact of different innovation questions and instructions, and the addition of a survey supplement to collect detailed information from companies reporting R&D paid for by others. In addition, questions and instructions about company ownership were expanded to clarify, especially for foreign-owned companies, the information that should be reported on the survey. Cycling began for data items that were not needed every year from every company. These items will be returned to the questionnaire cyclically, depending on the demand for and quality of the collected data. Finally, data items that were poorly reported during the first two cycles of BRDIS were deleted.

The section titled "R&D Time Frame and R&D Product Life" was added for the 2010 cycle to aid in estimating the depreciation of R&D when it is treated as an investment in the U.S. System of National Accounts.

An experiment testing the impact of different innovation questions and instructions used two versions of the BRDIS short form. The innovation questions on the 2010 Form BRDI-1A were identical to questions used on the 2009 Form BRDI-1A, and the 2010 Form BRDI-1B altered the questions and instructions to replicate innovation questions on the European Union's Community Innovation Survey. The experiment did not produce statistically significant differences in measured rates of innovation.

Several changes were made to the 2009 BRDIS questionnaire-in part, to address reporting errors observed during the 2008 survey cycle. These changes included the following:

• A screening question at the beginning of the form asking companies whether they had R&D activity during the reporting period was removed.
• Exclusion instructions in the main R&D expense question were replaced with a series of targeted questions. This approach was based on the premise that the economic concepts requested by BRDIS do not always conform to the R&D measures tracked by companies. Rather than directly asking for concepts that may diverge from respondent preconceptions about R&D, the approach in 2009 guided respondents to derive amounts that conformed to the BRDIS definition of R&D.
• Instructions in the question about R&D paid for by others were replaced with a series of targeted questions.
• Data for R&D performed by others were derived rather than collected directly. For the 2009 cycle of BRDIS, R&D performed by others was the sum of two R&D costs known to be tracked by companies: payments to business partners for collaborative R&D and purchased R&D services.
• The order of the "Management and Strategy of R&D" and the "Financial Schedule B" (R&D paid for by others) sections was switched.

Capital expenditure. Capital expenditures are payments by a business for assets that usually have a useful life of more than 1 year, like buildings, equipment, or software. The value of assets acquired or improved through capital expenditures is recorded on a company's balance sheet. Expenditures for long-lived assets used in a company's R&D operations are not included in its R&D expense, but any depreciation recorded for those assets would be included in its R&D expense. Data are collected in the BERD Survey for capital expenditures for R&D operations for land acquisition, structures, equipment, capitalized software, and other items.

Employment, total and R&D. Involves the number of people employed by R&D-performing or R&D-funding companies in all locations, both foreign and domestic, during the pay period that included 12 March of the survey year. (The date 12 March is what most employers use when paying first-quarter employment taxes to IRS.) R&D employees are those who provide direct support to R&D, such as researchers, R&D managers, technicians, clerical staff, and others assigned to R&D groups. Those not included are employees who provide indirect support to R&D, such as corporate personnel, security guards, and cafeteria workers. In addition to providing head counts of total and R&D employees, the BERD Survey also produces estimates of FTE domestic R&D employment. This is the number of persons employed who were assigned full time to R&D, plus a prorated number of employees who worked on R&D only part of the time.

Employment, leased and temporary. The number of people who work for R&D-performing or R&D-funding companies but who are not considered employees of the reporting company. These workers perform tasks similar to the reporting companies' own employees but are technically employed by another company (such as a temp or staffing agency or a consulting firm) or are independent on-site consultants.

Expense and R&D expense. Involves money spent or costs incurred in an organization's efforts to generate revenue, representing the cost of doing business. Expenses may be in the form of actual cash payments (such as wages and salaries), a computed expired portion of an asset (depreciation), or an amount taken out of earnings (such as bad debts). Expenses are summarized and charged in the income statement as deductions from the income before assessing income tax. Whereas all expenses are costs, not all costs are expenses (e.g., costs incurred in acquisition of income-generating assets-see the definition of capital expenditure above). R&D expense is the cost of R&D funded by the company itself and performed within the respondent company's facilities, both foreign and domestic, or performed by others outside of the company under contract, subcontract, grant, or other funding arrangement.

R&D and business R&D. R&D is planned, creative work aimed at discovering new knowledge or devising new applications of available knowledge. This includes (1) activities aimed at acquiring new knowledge or understanding without specific immediate commercial applications or uses (basic research), (2) activities aimed at solving a specific problem or meeting a specific commercial objective (applied research), and (3) systematic use of research and practical experience and resulting in additional knowledge, which is directed to producing new or improved goods, services, or processes (development). R&D includes both direct costs, such as salaries of researchers, and administrative and overhead costs clearly associated with the company's R&D. However, R&D does not include expenditures for routine product testing, quality control, and technical services unless they are an integral part of an R&D project. R&D also does not include market research; efficiency surveys or management studies; literary, artistic, or historical projects, such as films, music, or books and other publications; and prospecting or exploration for natural resources.

R&D, artificial intelligence (AI). AI is a branch of computer science and engineering devoted to making machines intelligent. Intelligence is that quality that enables an entity to perceive, analyze, determine response, and act appropriately in its environment.

Systems with AI perform functions including, but not limited to, speech recognition, machine vision, or machine learning:

• Speech recognition transforms human speech into a format useful for computer applications (e.g., a digital assistant).
• Machine vision uses sensors and software that allow images to be used as an input for computer applications (e.g., systems that sort or inspect objects or support navigation in mobile equipment).
• Machine learning uses statistical software and data to "learn" and make better predictions without reprogramming (e.g., recommender systems for websites, or sales and demand forecasting).

AI technologies also include virtual agents, deep learning platforms, decision management systems, biometrics, text analytics, and natural language generation and processing.

R&D, biotechnology. Biotechnology is the application of science and technology (S&T) to living organisms, as well as parts, products, and models thereof, to alter living or nonliving materials for the production of knowledge, goods, and services. The following list provides examples of areas of biotechnology in which R&D may be performed.

• DNA or RNA: Genomics; pharmacogenomics; gene probes; genetic engineering; DNA or RNA sequencing, synthesis, or amplification; gene expression profiling; and use of antisense technology, large-scale DNA synthesis, genome editing and gene editing, and gene drive.
• Proteins and other molecules: Sequencing, synthesis, or engineering of proteins and peptides (including large-molecule hormones); improved delivery methods for large molecule drugs; proteomics; protein isolation and purification; signaling; and identification of cell receptors.

• Cell and tissue culture and engineering: Cell or tissue culture, tissue engineering (including tissue scaffolds and biomedical engineering), cellular fusion, vaccine or immune stimulants, embryo manipulation, marker-assisted breeding technologies, and metabolic engineering.
• Process biotechnology techniques: Fermentation using bioreactors, biorefining, bioprocessing, bioleaching, biopulping, biobleaching, biodesulfurization, bioremediation, biosensing, biofiltration and phytoremediation, and molecular aquaculture.
• Gene and RNA vectors: Gene therapy and viral vectors.
• Bioinformatics: Construction of databases on genomes, protein sequences, and modeling complex biological processes, including systems biology.
• Nanobiotechnology: Application of the tools and processes of nano- or microfabrication to build devices for studying biosystems and applications in, for example, drug delivery or diagnostics.

R&D, domestic. R&D performed in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Adjusted domestic R&D is calculated in tables designed to enable comparisons between U.S. BERD Survey statistics and those of other nations. There are three types of tables corresponding to the three principal measures of domestic R&D in the BERD Survey-that is, R&D paid for by the respondent company and others outside of the company and performed by the respondent company, R&D paid for and performed by the respondent company, and R&D paid for by others and performed by the company. In each table, an internationally comparable adjusted domestic R&D estimate is calculated by subtracting depreciation relating to R&D operations, which is included in U.S. BERD Survey domestic R&D, and adding capital expenditures relating to R&D operations, which is excluded from U.S. BERD Survey domestic R&D. Also shown in each table are the differences between the U.S. BERD Survey estimates in this report and the adjusted internationally comparable estimates for domestic R&D.

R&D intensity, or R&D-to-sales ratio. R&D intensity is a ratio, expressed as a percentage, calculated by dividing the cost of R&D by sales. The ratio serves as an indicator of the relative incidence of R&D among groups of companies, primarily among industries and company size classifications. In this report, R&D intensity ratios are calculated in various ways, depending on the measure of R&D (R&D paid for by the respondent company, paid for by others outside of the company, or both) and whether the respondent company performs and funds or only performs R&D.

R&D, nanotechnology. The understanding of processes and phenomena and the application of S&T to organisms and to organic and inorganic materials-as well as parts, products, and models thereof-at the nanometer scale (but not exclusively below 100 nanometers) in one or more dimensions, where the onset of size-dependent phenomena usually enables novel applications. These applications utilize the properties of nanoscale material that differ from the properties of individual atoms, molecules, and bulk matter for the production of knowledge, goods, and services, like improved materials, devices, and systems that exploit these new properties. The following list provides examples of areas of nanotechnology in which R&D may be performed.

• Nanomaterial: Material with any external dimension in the nanoscale or having internal structure or surface structure in the nanoscale.

• Nanoelectronics: Field of S&T concerned with the development and production of functional electronic devices with nanoscale components.
• Nanophotonics: Branch of photonics concerned with interaction of photons with nanomaterials aiming to design optical or optoelectronic components.
• Nanomedicine: Medical application of nanotechnology (e.g., medical application of nanomaterials and biological devices, nanoelectronics biosensors, and possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology, such as biological machines).
• Nanomagnetics: The study of the magnetic response of nanomaterials to an applied magnetic field and their applications.
• Nanomechanics: A branch of nanoscience studying fundamental mechanical (elastic, thermal, and kinetic) properties of physical systems at the nanometer scale.
• Nanofiltration: A membrane filtration process used for the softening of water and the removal of organic matter; includes nanomembranes.
• Nanotools: Multicomponent tools and devices used for manipulation, nanolithography, and nanofabrication.
• Nanoinstruments or nanodevices: multicomponent instruments or devices used for observation, analysis, or control of matter at the nanometer scale.
• Nanomanufacturing: intentional synthesis generation of control of nanomaterials, or fabrication steps in the nanoscale, for commercial purposes.

R&D paid for by others, worldwide and domestic. The cost of R&D funded by others outside of the company, including the U.S. federal government, and performed within the respondent company's facilities, both foreign and domestic.

R&D paid for by the company and others, worldwide and domestic. The cost of R&D funded by the company or by others outside of the company and performed within the respondent company's facilities, both foreign and domestic, or performed by others outside of the company under contract, subcontract, grant, or other funding arrangement.

R&D performed by the company, worldwide and domestic. The cost of R&D performed within the respondent company's facilities, both foreign and domestic, funded by the company itself or by others outside of the company.

R&D performed by the company and others, worldwide and domestic. The cost of R&D performed within the respondent company's facilities, both foreign and domestic, or performed by others outside of the company under contract, subcontract, grant, or other funding arrangement.

R&D performed by others, worldwide and domestic. The cost of R&D funded by the company or by others outside of the company and performed by others outside of the company under contract, subcontract, grant, or other funding arrangement.

R&D, software and Internet. R&D activity in software and Internet applications refers only to activities that have an element of uncertainty and that are intended to close knowledge gaps and meet scientific and technological needs. This item is reported in this survey regardless of the eventual user (internal or external). R&D activity in software includes software development or improvement activities that expand scientific or technological knowledge and construction of new theories and algorithms in the field of computer science. R&D activity in software excludes software development that does not depend on a scientific or technological advance, such as supporting or adapting existing systems, adding functionality to existing application programs, routine debugging of existing systems and software, creating new software based on known methods and applications, converting or translating existing software and software languages, and adapting a product to a specific client, unless knowledge that significantly improved the base program was added in that process.

Sales, worldwide and domestic. Dollar values for goods sold or services rendered by R&D-performing or R&D-funding companies located in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia to customers outside the company, including the U.S. federal government, foreign customers, and the company's foreign subsidiaries. Included are revenues from a company's foreign operations and subsidiaries and from discontinued operations. If a respondent company is owned by a foreign parent company, sales to the parent company and to affiliates not owned by the respondent companies are included. Excluded are intracompany transfers, returns, allowances, and freight charges, as well as excise, sales, and other revenue-based taxes.