Nonprofit Research Activities (NPRA) Survey

Purpose

The Nonprofit Research Activities (NPRA) module of the Annual Business Survey collects information on research and experimental development (R&D) performed or funded by nonprofit organizations in the United States.

Data collection authority

Title 13, United States Code, Sections 8(b), 131, and 182; Title 42, United States Code, Section 1861-76 (National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended); and Section 505 within the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, authorize this collection. Sections 224 and 225 of Title 13 require mandatory response. Office of Management and Budget No. 0607-1004. NCSES has reviewed this product for unauthorized disclosure of confidential information and approved its release (NCSES-DRN24-093).

Major changes to recent survey cycle

None.

Target population

Included are all nonfarm organizations with at least one in-scope location filing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 as a tax-exempt organization and with an annual payroll of $500,000 or more. See the “Technical Notes” for details on the out-of-scope establishment categories.

Sampling frame

The sampling frame was constructed from the final 2022 Business Register and the Exempt Organizations Business Master File Extract (EO BMF). The Business Register is the Census Bureau’s comprehensive database of U.S. businesses. Organizations were excluded from the frame if they were considered outside the scope of the survey (e.g., churches, government organizations, educational institutions, or organizations located outside the United States). A financial threshold was also imposed to increase the efficiency of reaching organizations that perform R&D.

Sample design

The nonprofit R&D sampling frame is stratified by state and primary nonprofit activity (healthcare, science and technology, and all other organizations). Within each stratum, a subset of organizations is selected as certainty cases and the remaining cases are systematically sampled. Certainty cases have a selection probability of one and a sampling weight of one and represent only themselves. Specifically, organizations were selected with certainty based on the following criteria:

• Organizations with known R&D activity (1,300 organizations)
• Organizations larger than stratum-specific payroll cut-offs (850 organizations).

The nonprofit R&D sample consisted of 8,000 organizations, and 2,100 were selected with certainty.

The remaining 5,900 noncertainty cases were selected using systematic stratified random sample selection. The maximum sample weight was 7.4.

Data collection

The survey was mailed to 8,000 nonprofit organizations in July 2024. The organizations were sent a letter informing them of their requirement to report under Title 13, United States Code, Sections 224 and 225. The letter also provided instructions on accessing and submitting the survey online. There were three mail follow-ups and four e-mail follow-ups conducted to increase response. The collection period closed on 30 December 2024.

Data processing

Prior to tabulating the data, survey responses were reviewed and edited to correct any reporting errors detected. Nonprofit organizations reporting less than $50,000 in R&D expenditures were not included in the final tabulations. Survey analysts reviewed the R&D data reported by the respondents. The data were evaluated by calculating the reported R&D expenses to expense ratios and reviewing the organization’s website information.

Additional reporting errors were detected and corrected using an automated data edit system designed to review the data for reasonableness and consistency. The editing process interactively corrected detected errors using standard procedures. Quality control techniques were used to verify that procedures were carried out as specified.

Estimation techniques

Where possible, missing data were imputed using previous survey data or other publicly available documents, such as annual reports and financial statements. Survey weights were used to compensate for unequal probabilities of selection and nonresponse, and to calibrate sample estimates of expenses to match total expenses on the sampling frame. Measures of sampling variability were estimated using the delete-a-group jackknife variance estimator.

Sampling error

Sampling error is the difference between estimates obtained from the sample and results theoretically obtainable from a comparable complete enumeration of the sampling frame. For published estimates from NPRA, relative standard errors (RSEs) are produced for all estimates. Tables of the estimated measures of sampling variability corresponding to each data table are available upon request.

Coverage error

Coverage error occurs when the sampling frame fails to completely enumerate the population of interest. There can be both undercoverage error, where organizations are not included in the frame, and overcoverage error, where organizations included in the frame are out of scope for the population of interest. The NPRA module uses the prior year’s Business Register to construct the frame, so any changes in organizations that would change the inclusion or exclusion of the organization to the survey scope could be sources of coverage error.

Another source of error involved the incorrect inclusion of organizations already represented in other R&D data collections. The R&D expenditures of these respondents was set to 0 where it was determined their R&D was already represented in other NCSES surveys. These cases included nonprofit organizations managing federal laboratories and some university-affiliated hospitals.

Nonresponse error

Nonresponse error refers to the differences in key estimates between organizations in the sampling frame that were sampled for data collection and those that responded. Unit nonresponse is treated by adjusting weighted reported and imputed data by multiplying each organization’s sampling weight by a nonresponse adjustment factor. The “Technical Notes” provide detailed descriptions of the adjustments for nonresponse.

Measurement error

The most common source of measurement error is misreporting the units (e.g., reporting whole dollars rather than thousands of dollars). This type of error was corrected during data processing.

Data availability

Data are available at the survey page: https://ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/nonprofit-research-activities/.

Data comparability

The questions in the FY 2020 module were first developed and used on the FY 2016 Nonprofit Research Activities Survey—which was the first national survey of R&D activities in the U.S. nonprofit population since 1997. Due to the differences in the surveys prior to FY 2020, those data are not comparable for trend analysis.

Publications

NPRA data are published in data tables and analytic reports available at the survey page.

Electronic access

The NPRA module contains confidential data that are protected under Title 13 and Title 26 of the United States Code. Two types of data are currently available: public-use tabular statistics and restricted microdata. Public-use tabular statistics can be obtained on the NCSES website and by contacting NCSES. Restricted microdata are available at any of the 15 secure Research Data Centers administered by the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at the Census Bureau. Researchers interested in accessing microdata can apply for a restricted-use license by submitting a proposal to the CES, which evaluates proposals based on their benefit to the Census Bureau, scientific merit, feasibility, and risk of disclosure. To learn more about the Research Data Centers and how to apply, please visit the CES page on research with restricted-use data. For additional information about the application process, including how to initiate a project, please contact the administrator at the primary site where the research will be conducted. Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, the data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit the data.