NDSEG Supporting Statement

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission

DoD National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowships Program

A. Justification

1. Circumstances making the collection of information necessary.

The National Defense Science and Engineering (S&E) Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowships program provides 3-year fellowships to students enrolled in PhD programs of interest to the Department of Defense. Awards are under the authority of 10 USC 2191. The request for applications is necessary to screen applicants and to evaluate and select students to award fellowships. Approximately 190-200 awards are made each year.

2. How and by whom the information will be used.

Application information such as university transcripts, Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, recommendation letters, student goals etc. are used for evaluation and selection of awardees. Information is used by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the contractor selected to administer the program, to down-select the eligible applicants by means of a peer review panel. The information is also used by scientists of the Air Force, Army, Navy, and the High Performance Computing Modernization Program Office to make the final selection of awardees.

Awardees will be required to provide ASEE with personal information such as Social Security Numbers, Bank Account transfer codes, etc., to receive direct-deposit payments of their stipends and required reporting to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The information (voluntary) collected on gender, race, ethnicity or handicap is used in meeting DoD needs for data to permit response to Congressional and other inquiries into equity issues. Aggregated data will be used. Data specific to individuals will not be accessed.

Application instructions and forms may be downloaded from http://ndseg.asee.org/application_instructions

3. Consideration of the use of information technology.

Applications for NDSEG fellowships are by electronic submissions to ASEE. Recommendation letters are requested to be submitted electronically; however, paper submissions are acceptable. Academic transcripts are received directly from universities by mail.

Fellows selected for awards are paid by electronic transfer to their bank account.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication.

NDSEG is a unique program and these one-time applications do not duplicate other DoD requests.

5. Small Business/Small Entities Considerations.

Small businesses and small entities are not impacted by this information collection.

6. Consequences of Non-collection or Less Frequent Collection.

Awards are granted annually. The pool of potential applicants is continually changing as new students become eligible to apply. Non-receipt of information to evaluate and award fellowships would mean that approximately 180-200 students would not receive fellowships. Funding appropriated by Congress would not be awarded.

7. Special Circumstances for Collection.

None.

8. Federal Register Notice and Other Consultations.

The 60-day Federal Register notice was published. No comment were received.

The type of information to be collected is similar to information collected by universities, other government agencies, and the National Science Foundation to enable evaluation and selection of students to be awarded scholarships and fellowships.

9. Payments to Respondents.

None.

10. Confidentiality.

The announcement and the electronic application process for the NDSEG program contains a Privacy Act Statement (included in attached Application Instructions) which specifies the use of the information in evaluating and selecting the awardees. It further advises that voluntary demographic information may be used in the aggregate for evaluating equity issues. No personnel information is released to the public.

Information collected will be maintained in accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974.

11. Sensitive Questions.

Application information collected on gender, citizenship, race, ethnicity, or disability is collected voluntarily and in a separate section of the electronic submission to the contractor. Only aggregated data is used for required reports and equity issues. Students selected for awards will be required to provide their Social Security Number and bank routing codes in order for the government to provide their stipends. This information will be maintained by ASEE (current contractor for NDSEG).

12. Response Burden Hours.

ASEE receives approximately 3,000 fellowship applications annually. We estimate that an average of 12 burden hours are expended by the public for each application for an annual total of 36,000 hours. These submissions are considered “required to receive a benefit.” Application Instructions are attached.

13. Burden Cost to Respondents.

There is no cost to the applicant above the expense of preparing and submitting the application. Student completes the application package – estimated cost of student burden is $17/hour x 12 hours = $204 per applicant. Approximately 3,000 applicants = $612,200.

Recording keeping expense is $787,000 paid to contractor.

14. Annualized Cost to the Federal Government.

It is difficult to estimate the annualized cost to the Federal Government in terms of hours expended, salaries, equipment involved etc since peer review panels consist of academic, scientific, engineering communities and full-time government employees from GS-12 through Senior Executive Service (SES). They rank order all the applicants. Actual selections recommendations are made from further review at the field level based on both ranking from peer review panels and scientific and engineering needs of DoD laboratories.

15. Reasons for Program Changes (Items 13 or 14 of OMB-83-I).

No change in the burden.

16. Publication of Information.

Not applicable. Information will not be published.

17. Display of Expiration Date for OMB Approval.

Not applicable. We are not seeking an exemption.

18. Exceptions to the Certification Statement (Item 19 of OMB-83-I

There are no exceptions to the Certification Statement.

Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods.

Not applicable.