The National Science Foundation (NSF) has a number of programs that support undergraduate research and other kinds of research at primarily undergraduate institutions. Two of the most important are the Research in Undergraduate Institutions program and Major Research Instrumentation program. The aims of the programs and types of activities funded…

Social capital concept has become popular over the past decades. What is not known in literature and worth investigating is the network designs and nature that enhance the development of new learning ideas and knowledge creation. The aim of the paper is to examine network structure dimensions, namely centrality (bonding) and structural holes…

NSF's new Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2022-2026 was released on March 28, 2022. To achieve NSF's vision of "A nation that leads the world in science and engineering research and innovation, to the benefit of all, without barriers to participation," the Plan lays out four strategic goals. The first, "Empower STEM talent to fully…

The U.S. R&D enterprise relies on businesses, federal and nonfederal governments, higher education institutions, and other nonprofit organizations. This report identifies trends in R&D performance and funding and compares them to those of the world's other major economies. The U.S. annual total of R&D has expanded steadily since 2010…

The increasing professionalisation, mixed profiles, and institutional formal recognition of research managers and administrators (RMAs), namely at higher education institutions, has led to an increasing but modest volume of academic studies focused on their professional identity, roles, functions and impact. Based on an extensive literature…

National Science Foundation's (NSF's) new Strategic Plan, "Building the Future: Investing in Discovery and Innovation--NSF Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years (FY) 2018-2022," was released on February 12, 2018. To achieve NSF's vision of "A Nation that is the global leader in research and innovation," the Plan lays out three…

To assist new scientists in the transition to independent research careers, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implemented an Early Stage Investigator (ESI) policy beginning with applications submitted in 2009. During the review process, the ESI designation segregates applications submitted by investigators who are within 10 years of…

This report summarizes key indicators that assess the status of the science and engineering (S&E) enterprise within the United States and that illustrate the U.S. global position in multiple aspects of the S&E enterprise. This includes information about the geographic distribution of S&E activities; science, technology, engineering,…

The National Science Foundation (NSF), in carrying out the Obama administration's new push for greater public access to research published in scientific journals, will consider exclusivity periods shorter than the 12-month standard in the White House directive, as well as trade-offs involving data-sharing and considerations of publishers'…

We posed the question of what services an academic library can best provide to support the NIH Public Access Policy. We approached the answer to this question through education, collaboration, and tool-building. As a result, over the last four years we have engaged over 1,500 participants in discussions of public access to research results, forged…

An important factor in the success of America's national research system is that federal funds for university-based research are awarded primarily through peer review, which uses panels of scientific experts, or "peers," to evaluate the quality of grant proposals. In this competitive process, proposals compete for resources based on their…

Over a decade ago, the National Science Board (NSB) highlighted the importance of international collaboration in its call for increased government commitment to promoting international science and engineering (S&E) research and education. The NSB also identified the National Science Foundation (NSF) as having an important leadership role in…

Federal government agencies provide about $33 billion a year to universities to conduct scientific research. That continuing investment expands human knowledge and helps educate the next generation of science and technology leaders. New discoveries from university research also form the basis for many new products and processes that benefit the…

Not long ago, academic scientists welcomed calls from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) asking them to volunteer as peer reviewers. Many were glad for the opportunity to help distribute billions of dollars in federal biomedical-research grants even though the service required a big time commitment--the equivalent of one month a year to…

When "crisis" and "extramural funding" are mentioned, most academics think about problems such as the low percentage of proposals funded by federal agencies (now approaching single digits in many fields) or inadequate indirect-cost recovery rates that fail to reimburse universities for all costs of research. These are great problems draining…