Comparability

Comparability - geographical

Eurostat and OECD publish a number of manuals providing guidelines for the collection and processing of data and the definition of concepts. The EU legal acts refers to the manuals as guidelines for the statistics.

The manuals are:

• The Frascati Manual, dealing with R&D statistics
• The Oslo Manual, dealing with innovation statistics
• The Canberra Manual, dealing with measuring human resources within Science and Technology

The EU requirements are not defining how the information is provided and therefore methodological differences among countries may exist which affect comparability.

In comparison with statistics from other countries one should be aware that structural differences may have considerable impact. In the case of Denmark the university hospitals are included in the Higher Education Sector (HES), which means that this sector is relatively large compared to the remaining Government Sector (GOV). Other examples exist regarding differences in the content of HES and GOV.

Comparability over time

Comparable statements exist from 1997 to 2006, when the Centre for Research Analysis prepared the statistics, and from 2007 onwards, when Statistics Denmark has prepared the statistics. In the 2007 statistics, compared with earlier statements from the Centre for Research Analysis at Aarhus University, certain changes were made to the accounting principles used, and between 2006 and 2007 a number of structural changes occurred that affect a large number of research institutions. This means that the data in the new survey can only with difficulty be compared with earlier surveys.

Coherence - cross domain

Besides the statistics concerning the public sector there are also statistics regarding the business sector and in National Accounts.

Coherence - internal

Internal consistence exists.