2002

The basic difference between research and development can be explained by using the QQIOR (cure) principle. QQIOR is the Qualitative and Quantitative Input/Output Ratio.

In Research, the Qualitative Input/Output ratio is less than 1.0. More quality comes out of research than that goes in. Otherwise there is no originality in work. Of course, it does require some quality to go in. As Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Currently, research takes the form of reading and understanding the large body of work generated by a significant number of peers working in similar or dissimilar topics to build ones own original work in relation to theirs. It is akin to taking a lot of crude, distilling it and adding a catalyst in terms of ones own ideas and originality to present a refined new product.

Quantitatively, the I/O ratio of research is very low. In the current environment when seminal ideas are so few and infrequent, a researcher has to catch up with a large body of existing work before he can generate and output original work. Using the distillation analogy again, a lot of crude usually generates small amounts of the final product.

In development the qualitative I/O ratio is low. A lot of ideas and innovation are taken in to create a product (be it a chemical, computer hardware or software, among others). The new innovation that comes out of the development process is very little if any.

Quantitatively, the typical amount of product generated using established innovative ideas is very large. A formula can generate tonnes of chemical, an algorithm can generate thousands of lines of code, an idea can generate millions of transistors of hardware. The unit quantity of product that comes out a small idea is very large. (Of course, this does not include the actual man hours of effort that could have gone into coming up with the idea in the first place.)