Sponsors (6)
The bill creates a sustained, flexible NCSES data capacity to improve evidence for research and workforce policy, trading off mandated topic-specific assessments and incurring resource needs that could reduce transparency on some public-interest issues and require additional funding.
Scientists and researchers will gain a sustained NCSES data-collection and analytic capability that produces regular, usable statistics for planning and evaluation.
Policymakers and Congress will receive a concrete, ongoing plan to build data capacity, improving long-term evidence for workforce and research policy decisions.
Tech workers and researchers will benefit from broader flexibility for NCSES to collect data on emerging topics, enabling timelier responses to new workforce and research questions.
Tech workers and employees could see topics of public interest (e.g., workplace harassment, immigration) deprioritized because the Director has broader discretion over what topics to pursue.
Researchers, stakeholders, and the public lose a statutory requirement for NCSES to assess feasibility and benefits for specific topics, reducing guaranteed transparency and accountability on which issues get studied.
Taxpayers and federal budgets may face additional costs because building and maintaining new NCSES data-collection capacity could require NSF/NCSES resources or new appropriations, potentially diverting funds from other projects.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Replaces mandated feasibility assessments for listed NCSES survey topics with a requirement to submit a plan to create and sustain NCSES data collection and analytic capability, giving the Director topic discretion.
Official title: To amend the Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act to require a plan for data collection and analytical capability relating to the skilled technical workforce, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 14, 2026 by Hillary Scholten · Last progress January 14, 2026
Replaces a statutory requirement that the Director submit an assessment of the feasibility and benefits of adding specific topic modules to NCSES surveys with a new requirement to submit a plan to initiate and maintain an internal data collection and analytic capability. The change removes the enumerated list of example topics and gives the Director broader discretion to determine which topics to collect and analyze over time.