The ANBERD database covers OECD countries and selected non-member economies from as early as 1987, broken down across 100 industry groups straddling the entire business sector (i.e. not only manufacturing). ANBERD data on R&D expenditures is available on basis of the International Standard Industrial Classification, Revision 4 (ISIC Rev. 4). ANBERD allows to monitor the emergence and decline of different industries as a contributor to R&D performance and their relative importance across countries. 

ANBERD is part of the OECD ecosystem of databases for structural industry analysis (STAN). This provides the opportunity for comparing the level of R&D expenditure of industries with their economic performance. 

Data on industrial R&D intensity, measured as the ratio of R&D expenditure to gross value added, provides an indicator of the relative effort made within industries to create new knowledge and developing brand new products and processes. These indicators are used by OECD, policy analysts and researchers around the world to analyse how differences in industrial composition and R&D intensity within industries contribute to overall R&D intensity of the business sectors.