Industrial research and development, including energy and intellectual property expenditures, 2023 (actual), 2024 (preliminary) and 2025 (intentions)
Released: 2025-08-27
Data from the Annual Survey of Research and Development in Canadian Industry (RDCI) are now available for reference year 2023.
Main estimates for industrial research and development expenditures and personnel
Total research and development (R&D) estimates are available by industry group, country of control, revenue size, employment size and R&D expenditure size. Estimates include
• in-house R&D expenditures broken down by expenditure type, source of funds, geography, field of R&D and nature of R&D
• R&D personnel broken down by occupation and geography
• outsourced R&D expenditures broken down by location of recipient (inside or outside Canada) and economic sector of recipient.
Planned spending (2024) and intentions (2025) are available by industry group and country of control.
In addition to estimates of expenditures, tables include counts of R&D performers by industry group and averages of R&D spending by industry group and country of control.
Energy-related technologies research and development expenditures
Data from the energy R&D module of the Annual Survey of RDCI are now available for reference year 2023. Energy-related R&D expenditures are available by energy-related area of technology, industry group and country of control. Estimates include
• in-house R&D expenditures broken down by source of funds
• outsourced R&D expenditures broken down by location of recipient (inside or outside Canada).
Intellectual property and other intangible property expenditures and receipts
Data from the intellectual property and other technology payments module of the Annual Survey of RDCI are now available for reference year 2023. Estimates include
• payments made and received by location (inside and outside Canada) and affiliation (affiliated or unaffiliated businesses)
• payments made and received by type of payment (related to intellectual property, software, technical assistance and general technical know-how), industry group and country of control.
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Sustainable development goals
On January 1, 2016, the world officially began implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—the United Nations' transformative plan of action that addresses urgent global challenges over the following 15 years. The plan is based on 17 specific sustainable development goals.
Data on the characteristics of research and development in Canadian industry are an example of how Statistics Canada supports the reporting on the global sustainable development goals. This release will be used to help measure the following goal:
Note to readers
The data in this release are subject to revision.
Research and experimental development comprises creative and systematic work carried out to increase the stock of knowledge—including knowledge of humankind, culture and society—and to devise new applications from the available knowledge.
In-house research and development (R&D) expenditures refer to expenditures within Canada for R&D performed within the company by employees (permanent, temporary or casual) and self-employed individuals working on site on the company's R&D projects.
Current in-house R&D expenditures include wages, salaries, benefits, materials, supplies, services (such as R&D consultants), R&D materials (water, fuel, gas, electricity), and overhead costs.
Capital in-house R&D expenditures refer to the annual gross payment for fixed assets used for R&D for over a year. Capital in-house R&D expenditures include costs for software, land, buildings and structures, equipment, machinery and other capital costs.
Total in-house R&D expenditures equal the sum of capital and current R&D expenses.
Onsite R&D contractors are onsite personnel hired to perform specialized project-based R&D work under the supervision and direction of the contracting organizations. They are considered separate from industrial R&D employees.
Random tabular adjustment
The random tabular adjustment (RTA) technique, which aims to increase the amount of data made available to users, while protecting the confidentiality of respondents, was applied to the estimates from the Annual Survey of Research and Development in Canadian Industry.
Statistics Canada typically uses suppression techniques to protect sensitive statistical information. These techniques involve suppressing data points that can directly or indirectly reveal information about a respondent. This can often lead to the suppression of a large number of data points and significantly reduce the amount of available data.
Using RTA, Statistics Canada can identify sensitive estimates and randomly adjust their value rather than suppress them. The size of the adjustment is calculated to protect respondent confidentiality. After adjusting the value, the agency assigns a quality measure (A, B, C, D or E) to the estimate to indicate the degree of confidence that users can have in its accuracy. Quality measures account for uncertainty related to sampling, non-response and RTA, when applied.
For more information on RTA, please refer to the blog article "Random Tabular Adjustment is here!," available as part of the StatCan Blog.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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