Frequently Asked Questions
What information is provided by Federal R&D Project Summaries?
Project award information is provided, including agency or organization, project title, project abstract, principal investigator, and project start and end dates. Additional information, such as keywords or funding, is sometimes provided as well.
What Federal agencies participate in Federal R&D Project Summaries?
Original agency participants are Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Small Business Administration (SBA). New participants in 2009 include the Department of Defense (DoD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Transportation Research Board (TRB).
How many R&D records are searched? How often is it updated?
Over 800,000 records are searched when All Sources are searched. Queries are sent in real-time, so that as soon as an update occurs in a particular database, you will get these results via Federal R&D Project Summaries.
Can you explain the benefits of the Federal R&D Project Summaries search?
Federal R&D Project Summaries shows how the public's investment in research and development is being used. The search is a cross-agency search of R&D and provides an interdisciplinary view of science. The patron may select any or all agency databases to search. The query will be sent in real-time to the database(s) selected and full-text records for database matches will be returned. You do not need to know which agency or organization performs the R&D when the search is performed, nor do you have to wait for new records to be indexed prior to retrieving them. In addition, full-text is searched so that all relevant information is retrieved.
Why do the returned records appear to be different from one another?
We are pulling information from different sources, leaving the information in its original format. OSTI does not duplicate information from the agencies but rather provides the service to make each agency's information searchable via one interface. OSTI hosts the tool that searches and displays the information back to the patron so that results can be culled, compiled, and customized into useful sets of information.
Do the results differ from those found at each individual database?
The information is not altered in any way. We do capture only the top results returned from each participating database, generally the top 100. You may view specific details for each search by using the "Summary of All Results" link at the lower right of the result page dashboard. We also use our own relevancy filter since we are compiling results from many sources. If more database results are needed from a particular source, you may wish to go directly to the source you have identified as being most relevant to you through Federal R&D Project Summaries.
What features are added in this new version of Federal R&D Project Summaries?
Content will now include project summaries from the Department of Defense (DoD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Transportation Research Board (TRB), as well as from original agency participants - Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Small Business Administration (SBA). An Advanced Search feature has been added so that you may target your queries more narrowly, if desired. Enhanced capabilities are also evident on the results page, with clusters of subtopics presented within your area of interest for easier navigation and discovery. Principal investigators are also clustered. You may limit your results display to a single agency or organization, and you may also sort information in a variety of ways. In short, the information and capabilities of this new version are greatly enhanced.
