Governments regularly compile data on gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) and on personnel working in R&D. These data are generally collated at the national level by agencies such as Statistics Canada, which then pass on the data to international organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (see the OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicators) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (see the UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ data). Data on research input is complemented by data on research output and impact compiled by governmental, private and university organizations.
Science-Metrix has the capacity to obtain, structure, standardize and process the scientific and technological (S&T) data that is crucial for the purposes of evaluation. Science-Metrix owns three servers dedicated to data processing. The company owns or collaborates with third parties to access numerous databases comprising millions of records on scientific publications, patents and research funding. These databases are essential tools for conducting scientometric and technometric studies. Our analysts are experts in mining databases and producing statistics by means of complex queries using SQL (Structured Query Language).
