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Early Career Doctorates Survey
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The Early Career Doctorates Survey (ECDS) gathers in-depth information about individuals who earned their first doctoral degree (PhD, MD, or equivalent) in the past 10 years and work at academic institutions and federally funded research and development centers. Unique in scope, the ECDS includes professional and research doctorate holders from all fields trained in the United States and abroad. Sponsored by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation and by the National Institutes of Health, the ECDS provides new data on the demographics, work experiences, and career paths of individuals in the first years following the completion of their doctoral studies.
NCSES is updating their data linkage policy to better meet the data linkage needs of NCSES and external researchers. Currently, NCSES does not support researcher access to direct Personally Identifiable Information (PII). NCSES encourages researchers interested in developing an SAP application that includes linking NCSES restricted data to non-NCSES data sources to contact NCSES at NCSES_Licensing@nsf.gov to assess feasibility and appropriateness.
This dataset is available through the NCSES Secure Data Access Facility (SDAF), a virtual enclave that can only be accessed within the United States.
Detailed Methodology
The ECDS employed a two-stage sample design. The first stage was a stratified sample of 344 institutions with academic institutions, FFRDCs, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program (IRP) placed in separate strata. Within academic institutions, large universities with medical schools and centers were split into medical and nonmedical sampling units. The nonmedical academic sampling units were then stratified into three subgroups based on Carnegie classification. In the second stage, a stratified sample of potential early career doctorates was selected from each of the responding institutions. The sample was stratified by postdoc status, citizenship, race, and sex to enhance representation across these key domains. Because of low response rates and the resulting potential for nonresponse bias in subpopulation estimates, data for the medical schools and centers and the NIH IRP strata are excluded from published tables and figures. For research purposes, the restricted-use data include responses from early career doctorates working at medical schools and centers and the NIH IRP.
Two stage data collection: 1: institutions; 2: individuals.
The ECDS has the ability to link with other data sources by IPEDS educational institution indicator and FIPS state code.