In response to a request by the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) undertook a wide-ranging study of
the federally funded research system and its challenges in the 1990s. Central to the OTA report, Federally Funded Research: Decisions for a Decade, is the role of data for decision making as
an issue in U.S. research policy. This article summarizes the availability and state of such data
and suggests additional information that could be collected for manipulation in the aggregate
by Congress and the executive branch (especially the Office of Science and Technology Policy)
and at the program and project levels within the research agencies. The authors focus on the
analysis and presentation of data —on research expenditures, personnel, the research process,
and the outcomes of research -for monitoring changes in the U.S. research system for the decade
ahead.
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