I'm claiming that the R part of R&D was always tiny to begin with. That rising spending R&D is not indicative of much more R compared to dedicated research labs.
>That rising spending R&D is not indicative of much more R compared to dedicated research labs.
R&D are not binary options.
I know in some fields a massive amount of published papers are coming from corporations, and I suspect if I could find data on it that the percentage of peer-reviewed publications from corporations is much higher than in the past.
Certainly in various CS and math disciplines I work with, corporations have made massive inroads.
You're trying hard to push at a possible loophole in the rise in spending, but without evidence that more spending was not spent on what you think it should be, it's sensible to assume it was actually spent on increased R AND D.
Otherwise, for every conjecture you can make without evidence, I can just as easily make the opposite conjecture, and neither has been demonstrated.
Take a few moments and try to source some good evidence - I looked at a few directions and didn't find anything one way or the other, except that spending has increased.
