Overview 
Survey Design
Survey Quality Measures
Trend Data
Availability of Data
Overview (2006 Survey Cycle) 
a. Purpose
The Survey of Federal Science & Engineering (S&E) Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions is an annual congressionally mandated survey that is the only source of comprehensive data on federal S&E funding to individual academic and nonprofit institutions. It is used by federal policymakers and others interested in S&E trends, including state and local government officials, university policy analysts, R&D managers, and nonprofit institution administrators. It is also used by NSF and several other federal agencies for internal administrative purposes. For example, NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) uses the information to target states receiving relatively low levels of federal R&D funding.
b. Respondents
The survey is completed by federal agency representatives. In most cases, separate submissions are made for subagencies.
c. Key variables
Data are collected at the funding agency level and provided in aggregated form for more than 1,200 individual academic institutions. The survey provides data on federal funding sorted by the following categories:
- R&D
- Fellowships, traineeships, and training grants (FTTGs)
- R&D plant
- Facilities and equipment for instruction in science and engineering
- General support for science and engineering
- Other activities related to science and engineering
The key data variables include:
- Academic institution
- Federal agency
- Geographic location (within the United States)
- Highest degree granted
- Obligations (defined by obligating agency)
- Performer (type of organization doing work)
- R&D plant
- Type of academic institution (i.e., Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), tribal institutions, high-Hispanic- enrollment institutions, minority institutions)
- Type of institutional control (public versus private)
Note that the variables in this survey use definitions comparable to those used by the Office of Management and Budget and the Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development (Federal funds survey).
Data on R&D and R&D plant are available for over 1,300 individual nonprofit institutions.
2. Survey Design
a. Target population and sample frame
The target population consists of the following 19 federal agencies; 11 are department-level federal agencies and 8 are independent federal agencies.
- Department-level agencies:
- Department of Agriculture (www.usda.gov)
- Department of Commerce (www.commerce.gov)
- Department of Defense (www.defenselink.mil)
- Department of Education (www.ed.gov)
- Department of Energy (www.energy.gov)
- Department of Health and Human Services (www.hhs.gov)
- Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov)
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (www.hud.gov)
- Department of Interior (www.doi.gov)
- Department of Labor (www.dol.gov)
- Department of Transportation (www.dot.gov)
- Independent agencies:
- Agency for International Development (www.usaid.gov)
- Appalachian Regional Commission (www.arc.gov)
- Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (www.nasa.gov)
- National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov)
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission (www.nrc.gov)
- Office of Justice Programs (www.ojp.usdoj.gov)
- Social Security Administration (www.ssa.gov)
b. Sample design
All 19 federal agencies in the target population are surveyed.
c. Data collection techniques
Macro International performed the data collection for FY 2006 under contract with NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS). Macro International initially contacted the agencies by phone to verify the name, e-mail address, and phone number of each survey respondent. A Web-based data collection system (FSSWeb) is used to collect the federal S&E support survey data.
The FSSWeb system is part of NSF's effort to enhance survey reporting and reduce data collection and processing costs by offering respondents direct online reporting and editing. The survey code book and instructions are now part of the FSSWeb system. Some agencies do not use FSSWeb because they submit their data in alternative formats (e.g., ASCII text files, MS Excel spreadsheets).
Information was collected for the federal fiscal year 2006 (i.e., October 1, 2005 through September 30, 2006). Data collection began February 27, 2007 and agencies were given a requested due date of April 20. Data editing was performed using both manual reviews for obvious errors and automated data checks. The automated checks involved comparing current-year obligations by category of support against prior-year obligations. Problems were referred back to the agency submitting data, as appropriate.
d. Estimation techniques
This is a census of the 19 major federal agencies that obligate S&E funds for academic institutions and R&D and/or R&D plant funds for nonprofit institutions. There is no unit nonresponse or known item nonresponse, so no weighting or imputation techniques are used.
3. Survey Quality Measures
a. Sampling variability
Federal agencies in the target population are surveyed; there is no associated sampling error in the survey.
b. Coverage
The survey covers the federal agencies identified in the Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development as providing R&D or R&D plant obligations to universities or nonprofit organizations. The survey does not cover all federal agencies.
c. Nonresponse
1. Unit nonresponse—The response rate for this survey is 100 percent.
2. Item nonresponse—For the survey cycle that collected S&E support data for FY 2006, there was no item nonresponse.
d. Measurement
The major source of nonsampling error in this survey is measurement error. The survey instrument is complex, and agencies are not always able to provide the precise information requested. For example, federal agencies are not always able to identify which branch of a university system receives funding from them. Thus, complete disaggregation by actual university may not be feasible for some university systems.
There have also been problems in the past in determining the correct institutional code to be assigned to some universities. These types of coding errors result in measurement error in estimating funding for these institutions in the years affected.
Other problems include agency difficulties in matching program descriptions with the proper funding category (e.g., R&D, facilities and equipment for instruction) in the federal S&E support database. At least one agency has said that the "general support for S&E" and "other S&E" categories are a catchall for programs that do not fit anyplace else. (See the "Report on the NSF Federal S&E Support Survey Issues Workshop" held on May 20, 1999.)
4. Trend Data
The survey has been conducted annually since 1965. The initial survey elicited information about academic institutions only. Information on nonprofit organizations was added in 1968. In 1971, the survey was expanded to include information by S&E field. The survey stopped collecting non-S&E data or data by S&E field in the mid-1990s. Beginning in FY 1999, data on federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) were no longer being collected.
The number of nonprofit institutions for which information is requested has increased substantially over time. Data are now available on over 1,300 nonprofit institutions.
In some instances, prior-year data have been modified based on discrepancies noted during the consistency reviews of the data across years.
5. Availability of Data
a. Publications
The data from this survey are published annually in both the InfoBrief and in the Detailed Statistical Tables in the series Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions, which is available on the SRS website. Data for major data elements are available starting from FY 1963. Data from this survey are also available in the Academic Institutional Profiles (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/profiles/).
b. Electronic access
Data from this survey are available on the SRS website at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/fedsupport/ and in the WebCASPAR data system (http://webcaspar.nsf.gov/).
c. Contact for more information
To obtain additional information about this survey, contact:
Richard Bennof
Project Officer
Research and Development Statistics Program
Division of Science Resources Statistics
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 965
Arlington, VA 22230
Phone: (703) 292-7783
Internet: rbennof@nsf.gov
