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347.

In order to understand more about the R&D labour force and how it fits in the wider pattern of total scientific and technical personnel, it is recommended to collect headcount data on researchers and, if possible, on other categories of R&D personnel, broken down by:

●Sex.

●Age.

348.To report data by age, a breakdown into six categories is recommended:

–Under 25 years.

–25-34 years.

–35-44 years.

–45-54 years.

–55-64 years.

–65 years and more.

The above categories are in line with the United Nations Provisional Guidelines on Standard International Age Classifications (UN, 1982).

349.Other variables are also worth examining, such as salary levels and national origin. The collection of such data, however, may require conducting surveys of individuals, which is very resource-intensive. It is therefore useful to look at other administrative sources of data, such as population registers, social security registers, etc.

350.Different criteria are used to identify national origin: nationality, citizenship or country of birth. Others may also be of interest, such as country of previous residence, previous occupation or country of study at the highest level. All have advantages and disadvantages and provide different types of information. The combination of at least two of these criteria will give more information. However, collection of such data for R&D personnel is still at a preliminary stage.

351.Finally, it may be useful to collect headcount data on the educational background of R&D personnel, i.e. field of highest qualification. Fields of study are defined in ISCED-97 and may be related to the fields of science and technology presented in Chapter 3, Table 3.2.

5.3.5. Cross-classified data by occupation and qualification

352. Approaches by occupation and qualification have both strengths and weaknesses when used to classify R&D personnel. However, since each is

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associated with a useful body of related statistics (employment by occupation, educational statistics by qualification), it is desirable to classify R&D personnel by both occupation and qualification. It is recommended, furthermore, that data should be collected – perhaps every five years – for cross-classification between occupation and qualification on a headcount basis, as shown in Table 5.4.

Table 5.4. R&D personnel classified by occupation and by formal qualification

Headcount

		Occupation
	Qualification
		Technicians and	Other supporting
		Researchers	Total
		equivalent staff	staff

Holders of:

University degrees

PhDs (ISCED 6)

Others (ISCED 5A)

Other tertiary diplomas (ISCED 5B) Other post-secondary non-tertiary diplomas (ISCED 4)

Secondary diplomas (ISCED 3)

Other qualifications

Total

Source: OECD.

353. The correspondence between researchers and university graduates – researchers are generally expected to have university-level diplomas – does not always hold. Certain researchers have lower qualifications supplemented by on-the-job experience. It is also increasingly common to find university graduates with science and engineering (NSE) degrees employed as technicians. The correspondence is even more tenuous for the other occupational categories. For example, other supporting staff may hold diplomas at all levels (e.g. financial directors with university degrees in accountancy, senior secretaries with ISCED level 5 diplomas, etc.). A crossclassification such as the one suggested in Table 5.4 is useful for attempts to understand another country’s R&D personnel statistics, to evaluate the international comparability of these statistics, or, indeed, for discussing trends in one’s own country’s R&D labour force. Furthermore, it helps to identify the share of R&D personnel that is a subset of HRST, in particular the share referred to as “core” in the Canberra Manual, i.e. researchers and technicians who have completed tertiary education.

104	FRASCATI MANUAL 2002 – ISBN 92-64-19903-9 – © OECD 2002