About this report

The Survey of Earned Doctorates, the data source for this report, is an annual census of individuals who receive research doctoral degrees from accredited U.S. academic institutions. The survey is sponsored by six federal agencies: National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health, Department of Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, Department of Agriculture, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These data are reported in several publications from NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. The most comprehensive and widely cited publication is this report, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities.

This report calls attention to major trends in doctoral education, organized into themes highlighting important questions about doctorate recipients. Online, the reader is invited to explore trends in greater depth through detailed data tables and interactive graphics (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/). Technical notes and related resources are provided to aid in interpreting the data, and report content is available for downloading. An interactive data tool is also available at https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/ids/sed.