Attachment C4 brochure

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
Grant experiences

Employer
demographics

About the Study
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)

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

Type of work

Professional
and personal
life balance

Typical workload

Mentoring

Work relationships

Flexibility in scheduling
your work

In addition to name, work address, email, and phone
number, you will be asked to provide data indicating
highest degree held, year of degree, job title, department,
field of research, gender, year of birth, and citizenship.
These fields will improve our ability to achieve a
representative sample of early career doctorates. In
developing the contact database, please:
• Review the enclosed “Preferred data fields and
specifications” document and determine which of the
requested data fields are maintained by your institution.
• Determine who at your institution has access to the
necessary databases and work with these people to
query the databases.
• Work with RTI to ensure your queries are identifying all
early career doctorates at your institution and to submit
your data.

To minimize the burden of gathering these data, NCSES
is requesting only data available within your institutions’
administrative databases.

Work expectations
Future career

• 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.

Type of employer

What kind of information do I need to compile?

Plans over the next
10 years

How was I selected?
Approximately 80 institutions were selected to participate
in this initial phase of this study. You were nominated to
serve as your institution’s point of contact for this study.

What does my participation involve?
Your role in this study is to compile basic information
on all individuals at your institution who earned a
doctorate degree (PhD, MD, or equivalent) in the past
10 years. RTI International (the study contractor) will use
this information to sample and contact 40 prospective
respondents at your institution.

How will personally identifying information (PII)
be protected?
Protecting respondent privacy is a priority for NCSES and
RTI. The following steps will be taken to protect the data
and ensure that personally identifying data are never
released:
• 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.