BRDIS Update

This is an update to a request to conduct early stage scoping interviews for the purpose of developing survey questions for the Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRD-1), which was submitted under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725) on June 5, 2012 and approved on June 22, 2012.

After conducting the interviews and reviewing the interview data, the survey sponsors at the National Science Foundation realized a need for clarification regarding one particular aspect of the innovation survey concepts (products and activities that are “significantly improved”). We would like to make follow-up calls to up to 20 of the companies we interviewed initially, in order to have a brief conversation about this specific topic. At the end of the initial interviews we offered to send the participants a copy of the research report, to which all participants consented. As a result, they are already expecting a follow-up communication from us. No new companies will be contacted. The interview protocol is attached.

Our original request was for a total of 30 interviews and 173 burden hours, and we conducted 23 interviews for a total of 57.5 burden hours, including respondent recruiting We have approximately 115.5 burden hours remaining from the original request. So no additional burden hours are being requested at this time.

For the supplemental request, we anticipate the additional burden to be 5 hours (20 interviews X 1 participant each X 15 minutes). These interviews will take place in August and September, 2013.

We will audio-record the interviews with the participants’ permission to aid researchers in accurately reporting findings and recommendations. Before beginning the interviews, we will inform participants that their response is voluntary. We also will inform the participants that the information they provide is confidential. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is:

Alfred D. Tuttle

Response Improvement Research Staff

Office of Economic Planning and Improvement

U.S. Census Bureau
Washington, D.C. 20233
301-763-7809

alfred.d.tuttle@census.gov