In 2002, a grant to the Urban Institute initiated the STEM Workforce Project, Part I. (STEM is a commonly-used acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.) The goal was to use existing data in a creative way to develop and disseminate new and reliable statistical information on the STEM workforce in the United States. Due to delays caused by staff changes and in the interest of expediting the work, the project was moved to the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. The project has now created a novel set of detailed databases on the U.S. STEM workforce stretching back over twenty years. Based on this dataset the project has produced a number of reports and white papers that can be accessed on the website, http://www.cpst.org. This grant supports a final Phase II of the project over an 18-month period. Additional reports, data archives, and white papers will be produced, cumulating to 10 reports and 4 white papers in all. The project will then publish a final and comprehensive document that summarizes all prior reports and white papers and includes recommendations emerging from this STEM Workforce Data Project. The grantees will also organize and host a national conference on the present and future status of the STEM workforce. Project Director: Lisa Frehill, Executive Director.

Reports of occupational "labor shortages" have been regular features of the popular press. Most such reports have failed to be clear about what is meant by "labor shortage" and have provided only weak and anecdotal evidence of the phenomenon. In spite of the lack of scientific analysis, concerns about such shortages underlie many proposed policy actions relating to higher education, government-sponsored training programs, immigration, and federal data collection. This grant supports a focused and expert set of analyses of such occupational labor shortages, with special attention to the U.S. science and engineering workforce. The project will first clarify and compare the variety of meanings that underlie past and current "shortage" claims. Based on this analysis, the project will then develop a set of quantitative indicators that can be used to identify "labor shortages" using credible empirical data. To gain more detailed understanding of important occupations than is possible from large-scale statistical data alone, qualitative research will also be carried out based on a series of case studies of specific occupations, mostly in science and engineering, and specifically including information technology workers, secondary school science and mathematics teachers, and biologists. The final stage of the project will explore the implications of whatever findings emerge for proposed policies in domains such as increased government expenditures on training and education, immigration, temporary labor programs, and improved data sources. Project Director: Burt S. Barnow, Principal Research Scientist, Institute for Policy Studies.

Prior Foundation grants aimed at improving the postdoctoral experience at U.S. universities led in 2003 to the creation of the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA). Since then, many universities have created campus-based postdoctoral offices (PDOs) to provide centralized institutional support to postdoctoral researchers. Many major research universities also now have postdoctoral associations (PDAs); these are campus-based membership organizations of postdocs, usually affiliated with the NPA, that work with their campus administrations to support improvements in the quality of the postdoctoral experience. The NPA has worked to promote and facilitate the formation and maintenance of these campus-based groups. However, of 135 institutions in a database maintained by the NPA, some 34 still do not have a PDO, 61 do not have a PDA, and 14 have neither. The current grant supports the Postdoc Leadership Mentoring Project of the National Postdoctoral Association. The mentoring program will bring together emerging and prospective postdoc leaders with more experienced leaders from established PDOs and PDAs. The NPA will invite applications for up to 55 small travel awards to support attendance by emerging postdoc leaders at the NPA 2007 Annual Meeting, where they can meet many leaders of PDOs and PDAs. Technical assistance to recipients who seek to establish campus postdoctoral organizations will be made available, monthly teleconferences held, and site visits to prospective new campuses by small volunteer teams of experts will be supported. New campus postdoctoral offices and associations will receive substantial continuing assistance from NPA staff and volunteers. Project Director: Alyson Reed, Executive Director.

This grant supports quantitative sociological research on careers and workforce issues related to science and engineering in the U.S. The primary aim is to gain better understanding of the educational and career pathways and transitions being followed by U.S. students from high school to college and graduate school, into career paths within or outside science and engineering, and possible later shifts out of science and engineering occupations. The plan is to utilize large datasets created by longitudinal studies of national samples of high school students, samples that were then tracked and re-interviewed in later years, in order to follow their subsequent education and career experiences. The earliest such sample began with high school students in 1972 and its subjects were followed into their mid-30s. In addition to intensive analysis of the data to be developed from these longitudinal survey studies, project researchers will interview samples of students at several undergraduate colleges, as well as 80-100 science and engineering workers now in mid-career who graduated from these same colleges. Among the many important questions to be given serious attention by this study are the following: (1) What categories of U.S. high school students are going into college majors and careers in science and engineering, and how have their characteristics changed over time over the past 30 years?
(2) What career choices are being made by the most highly qualified students, and how have these changed over time? (3) How do students with strong potential for science and engineering careers perceive career prospects, and what are the important factors in their decision to choose or not choose careers in these fields and later to continue or depart these career paths? Project Director: Harold Salzman, Center on Labor, Human Services and Population.

To provide an integrated source of objective data and user-friendly tools to assist prospective graduate students to better identify and evaluate graduate programs in their fields of choice. Project Director: Geoff Davis, Founder, Collected Insight, Inc., Raleigh, NC.

To create a new Internet-based blog (web-log) designed to cultivate easily accessible and informed discussion on careers in science and engineering among the large numbers of scientists and engineers in early stages of their professional careers. Project Directors: Geoff Davis, Founder, Collected Insight, Inc., Raleigh, NC and Peter Fiske, Vice President, RAPT Industries, Inc., Livermore, CA.

To support an expert workshop and two reports to improve quantitative projections of effects of proposed immigration reforms. Project Director: B. Lindsay Lowell, Director of Policy Studies, Institute for the Study of International Migration.