Measuring R&D performance - State of the art

Many R&D performance measurement techniques have been developed in response to the unique needs of various organizations. An extensive search of the literature from 1956 to 1995 identified over 90 articles, 12 books and two research reports describing various techniques. Integrated metrics that combine several types of quantitative and qualitative measures were found to be the most effective, but also the most complex and costly to develop and use. The choice of an appropriate R&D measurement metric depends on the user's needs for comprehensiveness of measurement, the type of R&D being measured the available data, and the amount of effort the user can afford to allocate to it. Guidelines are provided for selecting an appropriate measurement method within these parameters.