The National Academy of Science, under the auspices of the National Research Council, will conduct an assessment of doctoral programs to provide stakeholders with a statistical description of 57 fields of study, including 42 disciplines in science, engineering and mathematics. The study will advance understanding and address measures of interdisciplinary, analyze the postdoctoral history of faculty in science and engineering, collect information on institutional-wide activities that aid in improving the graduate student experience, and examine comparable cross-program data on the efficiency of graduate programs. Unlike previous assessments on doctoral programs, the study will not include a qualitative measure of scholarly reputation. Results from the project will permit programs to benchmark themselves against peer programs, inform perspective graduate students on various salient program characteristics that may be of interest as they consider and apply to doctoral programs, and encourage overall improvement of doctoral programs in science, engineering and mathematics.
