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 âother federal agenciesâ 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 âother federal agenciesâ 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