Higher Education: Reports

A Guide to the Methodology of the National Research Council Assessment of the Doctorate Programs (prepublication July 2009)
This report describes the purpose, data and methods used to calculate ranges or rankings for research-doctorate programs that participated in the NRC Assessment of Research-Doctorate programs. It is intended for those at universities who will have to explain the NRC Assessment to others at their university, to potential students, and to the press. Although the main text is fairly non-technical, it includes a technical description of the statistical methods used to derive rankings of over 5000 doctoral programs in 61 fields.

Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty  (prepublication: June 2009)
Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty presents new and surprising findings about career differences between female and male full-time, tenure-track, and tenured faculty in science, engineering, and mathematics at the nation's top research universities. Much of this congressionally mandated book is based on two unique surveys of faculty and departments at major U.S. research universities in six fields: biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics. A departmental survey collected information on departmental policies, recent tenure and promotion cases, and recent hires in almost 500 departments. A faculty survey gathered information from a stratified, random sample of about 1,800 faculty on demographic characteristics, employment experiences, the allocation of institutional resources such as laboratory space, professional activities, and scholarly productivity. This book paints a timely picture of the status of female faculty at top universities, clarifies whether male and female faculty have similar opportunities to advance and succeed in academia, challenges some commonly held views, and poses several questions still in need of answers. This book will be of special interest to university administrators and faculty, graduate students, policy makers, professional and academic societies, federal funding agencies, and others concerned with the vitality of the U.S. research base and economy.  

Science Professionals: Master's Education for a Competitive World (2008)
What are employer needs for staff trained in the natural sciences at the master's degree level? How do master's level professionals in the natural sciences contribute in the workplace? How do master's programs meet or support educational and career goals?

Science Professionals: Master's Education for a Competitive World examines the answers to these and other questions regarding the role of master's education in the natural sciences. The book also focuses on student characteristics and what can be learned from efforts underway to enhance the master's in the natural sciences, particularly as a professional degree.

This book is a critical tool for Congress, the federal agencies charged with carrying out the America COMPETES Act, and educational and science policy makers at the state level. Additionally, anyone with a stake in the development of professional science education (four year institutions of higher education, students, faculty, and employers) will find this book useful.

Community colleges play an important role in starting students on the road to engineering careers, but students often face obstacles in transferring to four-year educational institutions to continue their education. Enhancing the Community College Pathway to Engineering Careers, a new book from the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council, discusses ways to improve the transfer experience for students at community colleges and offers strategies to enhance partnerships between those colleges and four-year engineering schools to help students transfer more smoothly. In particular, the book focuses on challenges and opportunities for improving transfer between community colleges and four-year educational institutions, recruitment and retention of students interested in engineering, the curricular content and quality of engineering programs, opportunities for community colleges to increase diversity in the engineering workforce, and a review of sources of information on community college and transfer students. It includes a number of current policies, practices, and programs involving community college four-year institution partnerships.
Board on Higher Education and Workforce (BHEW)  

Frameworks for Higher Education in Homeland Security (2005)
This report explores whether there are core pedagogical and skill-based homeland security program needs; examines current and proposed education programs focusing on various aspects of homeland security; comments on the possible parallels between homeland security, area studies, international relations, and science policy, as developed or emerging academic thrusts; and suggests potential curricula needs, particularly those that involve interdisciplinary aspects. The report concentrates almost exclusively on coursework-related offerings, primarily at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR)  

National Laboratories and Universities: Building New Ways to Work Together -- Report of a Workshop (2005)
This volume is a report of a workshop held in 2003 to address best practices and remaining challenges with respect to national laboratory-university collaborations.
Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR)  

Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research (2004)
Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research examines current interdisciplinary research efforts and recommends ways to stimulate and support such research.

Advances in science and engineering increasingly require the collaboration of scholars from various fields. This shift is driven by the need to address complex problems that cut across traditional disciplines, and the capacity of new technologies to both transform existing disciplines and generate new ones. At the same time, however, interdisciplinary research can be impeded by policies on hiring, promotion, tenure, proposal review, and resource allocation that favor traditional disciplines.

This report identifies steps that researchers, teachers, students, institutions, funding organizations, and disciplinary societies can take to more effectively conduct, facilitate, and evaluate interdisciplinary research programs and projects. Throughout the report key concepts are illustrated with case studies and results of the committee’s surveys of individual researchers and university provosts.
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP)

Assessing Research-Doctorate Programs: A Methodology Study (2003)
How should we assess and present information about the quality of research-doctorate programs? In recommending that the 1995 NRC rankings in Assessing the Quality of Research-Doctorate Programs: Continuity and Change be updated as soon as possible, this study presents an improved approach to doctoral program assessment which will be useful to administrators, faculty, and others with an interest in improving the education of Ph.D.s in the United States. It reviews the methodology of the 1995 NRC rankings and recommends changes, including the collection of new data about Ph.D. students, additional data about faculty, and new techniques to present data on the qualitative assessment of doctoral program reputation. It also recommends revision of the taxonomy of fields from that used in the 1995 rankings.
Board on Higher Education and Workforce (BHEW)

  Attracting PhDs to K-12 Education: A Demonstration Program for Science, Mathematics, and Technology (2002)
The National Research Council (NRC) has undertaken a three-phase project to explore the possibility of a program to attract science, mathematics and engineering PhDs to careers in K-12 education. The first phase of the project surveyed the interests of recent PhDs in science and mathematics in pursuing careers in secondary education. Analysis of the Phase I data suggests that a significant percentage of PhDs might be interested in pursuing careers in secondary education under some circumstances. This report from the second phase of the project presents a proposal for a national demonstration program to determine how one might prepare PhDs to be productive members of the K-12 education community. The proposed program is designed to help meet the needs of the nation's schools, while providing further career opportunities for recent PhDs in science, mathematics and engineering.
 Board on Higher Education and Workforce (BHEW)  

Defining the Mandate of Proteomics in the Post-Genomics Era: Workshop Report (2002)
Research in proteomics is the next logical step after genomics in understanding life processes at the molecular level. In the largest sense proteomics encompasses knowledge of the structure, function and expression of all proteins in the biochemical or biological contexts of all organisms. Since that is an impossible goal to achieve, at least in our lifetimes, it is appropriate to set more realistic, achievable goals for the field. Up to now, primarily for reasons of feasibility, scientists have tended to concentrate on accumulating information about the nature of proteins and their absolute and relative levels of expression in cells (the primary tools for this have been 2D gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry). Although these data have been useful and will continue to be so, the information inherent in the broader definition of proteomics must also be obtained if the true promise of the growing field is to be realized. Acquiring this knowledge is the challenge for researchers in proteomics and the means to support these endeavors need to be provided. An attempt has been made to present the major issues confronting the field of proteomics and two clear messages come through in this report. The first is that the mandate of proteomics is and should be much broader than is frequently recognized. The second is that proteomics is much more complicated than sequencing genomes. This will require new technologies but it is highly likely that many of these will be developed. Looking back 10 to 20 years from now, the question is: Will we have done the job wisely or wastefully?
Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO)  

Preparing for the Revolution: Information Technology and the Future of the Research University (2002)
The rapid evolution of information technology (IT) is transforming our society and its institutions. For the most knowledge-intensive entities of all, research universities, profound IT-related challenges and opportunities will emerge in the next decade or so. Yet, there is a sense that some of the most significant issues are not well understood by academic administrators, faculty, and those who support or depend on the institution’s activities. This study identifies those information technologies likely to evolve in the near term (a decade or less) that could ultimately have a major impact on the research university. It also examines the possible implications of these technologies for the research university—its activities (learning, research, outreach) and its organization, management, and financing—and for the broader higher education enterprise. The authoring committee urges research universities and their constituents to develop new strategies to ensure that they survive and thrive in the digital age.
Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR)  

Issues for Science and Engineering Researchers in the Digital Age (2001)
This guide for students and faculty discusses opportunities and implications of conducting research in a digital environment.
Committee on Science, Technology, and Law (STL)

Trends in Federal Support of Research and Graduate Education (2001)
The Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy updated its 1999 analysis (Appendix A, Securing America's Industrial Strength, 1999) of changes since 1990 in the distribution of federal research funding by field of science and engineering) by incorporating FY 1998 and FY 1999 obligations from the NSF Federal Funds survey, with particular attention to the trends in basic research support, changes in research fields' relative dependence on research-sponsoring agencies, and the relationship between changes in research support and changes in enrollment in graduate training in selected fields of research. The Board did not recommend funding levels for any discipline but addressed procedural aspects of R&D budgeting.
Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP)