Читать книгу The IP Box Regime. A Study from an International and European Perspective - Elizabeth Gil García - Страница 8

Scientific and technological activities (STA) are systematic activities associated with the generation, advancement, dissemination and application of knowledge in all fields of S&T.8 These activities refer to R&D, education and training (STET) or scientific and technological services (STS).9

According to Frascati Manual, R&D

“comprise creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge –including knowledge of humankind, culture and society– and to devise new applications of available knowledge”.10

This definition requires that five criteria are met. That is to say, the activity should be: (i) aimed at new findings; (ii) based on original, not obvious, concepts and hypotheses (creative); (iii) planned and budgeted (systematic); (iv) uncertain about the final outcome; and, (v) lead to results that could be possibly reproduced (or transferred).11 Precisely, these are the core criteria for the identification of R&D activities and projects.

The term R&D includes three activities:

(i) basic (or fundamental) research, defined as experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view;

(ii) applied research, defined as original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge, but it is directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective;

(iii) experimental development, explained as systematic work, drawing on knowledge gained from research and practical experience and producing additional knowledge, which is addressed to the production of new products or processes, or to the improvement of existing products or processes.12

While the Frascati Manual encompasses R&D in all field of sciences, R&D in social sciences and humanities is excluded in a number of jurisdictions (e.g., Australia, China or United States) for tax relief purposes according to the OECD report prepared in 2018.13

In addition, the Frascati Manual deals with other STA that even if they are similar to R&D, they are not regarded as R&D. The presence or absence of the above-mentioned criteria will distinguish R&D from non-R&D activities. For instance, design activities are quite related to R&D activities as they normally take part of a research project (or of an innovation process). However, the novel and uncertain criteria are not frequently met in design activities. Something similar occurs with software development. There is no doubt that the information and communications technology (ICT) sector is present in innovation processes and quite often software development allows the performance of R&D. Notwithstanding this, software development as R&D should be aimed to “the systematic resolution of a scientific and/or technological uncertainty”, e.g., the development of new operating systems or languages.14

Beyond the nature or character of the activity, the common feature of any STA is the ‘immediate aim’ or the ‘specific reason’ to perform such activity.15 Thus, R&D, STET and STS are carried out under a specific purpose. However, STET and STS should be distinguished from R&D as they do not meet certain criteria or elements to be identified as R&D.

On the one side, education and training at universities and special institutions of higher education are very closely linked to R&D. Indeed, “the results of research feed into teaching” and “the information and experience gained in teaching can often result in an input to research”.16 Education and training can be defined as all activities that comprise higher education, education leading to a university degree, post-graduate and further training, and organised lifelong training for scientists and engineers.17 In particular, the research carried out by doctoral students and by their supervisors will qualify as R&D. Of course, tasks and activities that are not related to research should be excluded from the R&D concept.

On the other side, scientific and technological services (STS) refer to activities concerned with R&D and contributing to the generation, dissemination and application of scientific and technical knowledge,18 e.g., library services or museum services. The difficulties in separating R&D from this kind of services arise when both activities are performed in the same institution.19 STS may be distinguished from R&D by the fact that they do not have the character of ‘innovation’, i.e. the work addressed to the establishment of new methodologies, procedures or techniques in these services will be regarded as R&D.20