Attachment C1 HA_RT1

EARLY CAREER
DOCTORATE STUDY
For additional information contact:
Peter B. Einaudi, Project Manager

The success of recent doctorate
recipients is critical to the success of
the U.S. scientific enterprise and will
influence U.S. and global scientific
markets for years to come.

RTI International
3040 Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
E-mail: peinaudi@rti.org
Phone: 800-123-1234

Kelly S. Phou, Project Officer
National Center for Science and Engineering
Statistics
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 965
Arlington, VA 22230
E-mail: kphou@nsf.gov

Visit us at:
www.earlycareerdoctoratestudy.org

Early Career
Doctorate Study

What topics does the survey cover?
Educational
background

Degrees earned—dates
awarded, fields of study,
and institutions
Student loan burden

Professional
activities

Conference attendance
Publications and
presentations
Professional service

The Early Career Doctorate Study is a survey of individuals
who earned their first doctoral degree (PhD, MD, or
equivalent) within the last 10 years and are currently
working in one of the following settings:
• U.S. academic institution
• Federally Funded Research and Development Center
(FFRDC)
• Intramural research program of the National Institutes
of Health (NIH)
The work of early career doctorates is critical to the
success of the U.S. scientific enterprise and will influence
U.S. and global scientific markets for years to come.
Despite the importance of early career doctorates,
there is no current way to track their work patterns and
contributions to the U.S. economy.
To address this need, the National Center for Science and
Engineering Statistics (NCSES) at the National Science
Foundation is starting the Early Career Doctorate Study.
The Center will use this survey to provide needed data on
early career doctorates, including:
• Career paths

• Research opportunities

• Career plans

• Training opportunities

In addition to each early career doctorate’s name and
contact information, the point of contact will be asked
to provide data such as highest degree held, year of
degree, job title, department, gender, year of birth, and
citizenship. These fields will improve our ability to achieve
a representative sample of early career doctorates.

Employer
demographics

Type of employer

Professional
and personal
life balance

Typical workload

To minimize the burden of gathering these data, NCSES
is requesting only data available within your institutions’
administrative databases. NCSES estimates that it will
take your designee 6-8 hours to develop and submit the
contact database.

Flexibility in scheduling
your work

How will our employees’ privacy be protected?

Grant experiences

About the Study

What kind of information is needed for the
contact database?

Mentoring
Future career

Type of work

Work relationships
Work expectations
Plans over the next
10 years

How did you select my institution?
Your institution is one of eighty academic institutions and
FFRDCs randomly sampled to participate in this initial
phase of this study.

What does my participation involve?
NCSES is asking that you provide a letter of support for the
study and designate a point of contact who will work with
RTI (the study contractor) to develop a contact database
of all early career doctorates working at your institution.
This contact database will serve as the sampling frame
from which 40 respondents will be selected and invited to
complete a 30-minute questionnaire. The letter of support
from you will help legitimate the study and increase
response rates.

Protecting respondent privacy is a priority for NCSES and
RTI. The following steps will be taken to ensure that all
personally identifying information (PII) are protected and
all responses kept confidential:
• All data will be collected using secure data transfer
protocols and maintained within encrypted databases.
• Each respondent will be given unique credentials
(username and password) and the survey conducted
over a secure internet connection (https).
• Only RTI survey staff will have access to the individuallevel data and all survey staff will sign a confidentiality
statement and an affidavit of nondisclosure.
• RTI will remove all PII from data files sent to NCSES and
will destroy all PII at the conclusion of the survey.
• NCSES will not release any individual-level data.