The survey provides academic R&D
Expenditures data by source and discipline, including research
equipment. Data are used for planning and policy formulation
related to academic science and engineering infrastructure. Users
include Congress, Federal agencies, States, industry, universities,
etc. Affected public-higher education and associated federally
funded R&D centers. This revision does not any changes to the
design or protocol; however a few small changes are being made to
the instrument for the 2016-2017 renewal.
US Code:
42
USC 1862 Name of Law: National Science Foundation Act of
1950
The FY 2019 HERD population
review screener will ask about R&D expenditures for two fiscal
years: the reference year on the upcoming HERD survey and the
previous year. This will results in two additional questions on the
screener. The change to the screener is being made to reduce
response burden. For the past 3 survey cycles, an average of 73.7%
of the institutions sent the population review screener had also
been sent the screener during the previous collection. Adding the
additional questions will enable us to survey many institutions
less frequently (every other year) while still identifying newly
qualified institutions each year. We estimate that the additional
burden in a given year to any particular institution would be
minimal since the expenditure information for each fiscal year
would come from the same data source. We estimate a 50% drop in the
number of institutions being sent a screener in a given collection
cycle. Only minor instructional and navigational changes were made
to the FY 2019 HERD questionnaire. These edits were made to reduce
the submission of erroneously formatted data and to reduce the
ambiguity of several checkboxes. The edits should ease navigation
for respondents. Question 3 on the FY 2019 FFRDC survey was added
to collect more detail on funding from “other federal agencies”
collected in question 2h. From a design standpoint, the new
question 3 is virtually the same as HERD question 10. After
completion of the FY 2018 FFRDC survey, respondents with data
entered in question 2h were asked to provide the names and funded
expenditure totals of the “other federal agencies” listed in
question 2h. These data were needed to compare agency-level funding
for R&D collected through the FFRDC R&D survey and the
Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development. Respondents
were able to provide these data without great effort since they
already provide R&D expenditure data funded by 7 federal
agencies.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Attachment 5 - FY 2019 HERD Population screening methodology.pdf
Part A OMB supp statement for HERD.docx
FFRDC Research and Development Survey FY 2019