The OECD Short-term Financial Tracker of Business R&D (SwiFTBeRD) dashboard allows users to visualise quarterly, semi-annually and annually reported R&D data for the world's top R&D investors, providing company-specific and sectoral insights. It aims to deliver the timeliest possible view of R&D data reported by companies, with updates published continuously, shortly after they have been released in their quarterly financial reports (within less than two months from the end of the reference quarter for quarterly data and three months for annual data). 

SwiFTBeRD seeks to provide timely business R&D trends indicators based on data publicly disclosed by companies. This new and experimental tool (made available as a “Beta”, under development-type product) complements the OECD reporting of official R&D statistics published in the OECD Research and Development Statistics and the OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI) databases. Although official R&D data, principally based on statistical surveys, serve as basis for the most robust and internationally comparable variable breakdowns and structural indicators, they suffer from a lack of timeliness that results from regular collection and reporting cycles. R&D figures reported in companies’ financial accounts help provide a more timely picture that can complement survey-based data.