R&D personnel in a statistical unit include all persons engaged directly in R&D, whether employed by the statistical unit or external contributors fully integrated into the statistical unit’s R&D activities, as well as those providing direct services for the R&D activities (such as R&D managers, administrators, technicians and clerical staff). Persons providing indirect support and ancillary services, such as canteen, maintenance, administrative and security staff, should be excluded, even though their wages and salaries are included as an overhead cost when measuring R&D expenditure. Two main groups of individuals who potentially contribute to the R&D activities can be identified in a statistical unit: ‘Internal R&D personnel’ and ‘external R&D personnel’. Both groups of R&D personnel are classified according to their R&D function: ‘Researchers’, ‘technicians’ and ‘other supporting staff’. (See the relevant definitions in this glossary).
R&D surveys.
OECD (2015), Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development.