Civilised society has always carried out research. Such research is documented from early Chinese civilisations, and may well have been documented in Neolithic times. Indeed, the paintings in caves such as Lascaux appear to be both an observational record (of local fauna) and a modelling or simulation of intended action (hunting). The key point is that research leads to wealth creation and improvement in the quality of life. The problem is that the process to create wealth or life improvement from research outputs is little-understood and apparently non-deterministic. However, there is a general belief that if one documents the research activity, and the research output, then the opportunities for wealth creation or improvement in the quality of life are increased.