I was talking to a friend in Dublin the other day who runs a software business. He received a phone call last week from Enterprise Ireland (EI) asking why his reported spend on Research and Development (R&D) had dropped from €300,000 last year to €0 this year!
Well, because the CSO (the Irish government’s statistics agency) had told him that under their guidelines his spend on software development, even if it is for product development, can’t be classed as R&D.
Ah, said the EI rep, sure don’t worry about that when you are reporting to us!
Great, now we know why the government can’t get anything right – the various branches of the civil service are making up the reporting rules as they go along!
Tom,
Interested in hearing some more about this.
Ping me offline or give me a call when in Vegas (same timezone)
Lal
SOME POINTS TO CONSIDER:
What’s research anyway?
What’s Industrial Research and Applied Research?
Is Development not part of Research&Development?
THEN:
whats the purpose of gathering the data?
what’s the objective of the particular organisation interpreting the data?
what’s the skill/slant/bias of the person representing the organisation (whether independent or not)?
It’s all based on the imperfect system involving people.
Everything is sales.
“We don’t complain about the ref if he gives the decision our way” – ??