This report identifies in detail the investment firms make in intangible assets and the useful life of these investments.

Key findings:

• Non-R&D intangible spending (e.g. on training, software, branding, design and business process) is much more widespread than R&D spend.
• Both non-R&D and R&D intangible spend is more common in large and older firms.
• The overall level of intangible spend is considerable.
• Intangible investment brings long-lived benefits, particularly R&D investment.

This report presents the innovative new survey Nesta commissioned alongside the Office for National Statistics and Imperial College to address the gaps in key areas of innovation data.

The Investment in Intangible Asset survey explicitly measures the level of expenditures, external and internal, that UK businesses commit to intangible assets.

The results of the survey provide a more accurate measure of the scale of investments and the results of the survey will be integrated into Nesta’s forthcoming Innovation Index. This will make the investment data and the measure of the contributions to productivity more accurate.

Authors:
Gaganan Awano (ONS), Mark Franklin (ONS), Jonathan Haskel (Imperial College) and Zafeira Kastrinaki (Imperial College)