§18994 STEM workforce data

Summary

The Director must do a full review of the Foundation’s skilled technical workforce investments across all Directorates in education, research, infrastructure, data collection, and analysis. That review must be finished no later than 1 year after August 9, 2022. Within 180 days after the review is done, the Director must send a summary to Congress and make that summary available to the public. The Director must also work with other Federal statistical agencies and stakeholders to see if adding new questions or short topic modules to National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics surveys (that could change from cycle to cycle) is feasible and useful. A report on that assessment must be sent to Congress and the Board no later than 1 year after August 9, 2022, and it must cover five topics: the skilled technical workforce; working conditions and work-life balance; harassment and discrimination; immigration and emigration; and other topics the Director chooses. The Director must keep speeding up efforts to make NCSES survey data better for long-term research. The Comptroller General of the United States must, not later than 1 year after August 9, 2022, send Congress a report that evaluates the Foundation’s processes for making sure NCSES data and analysis meet current and future needs and that includes any recommendations to improve those processes.