This report provides projections of the supply and utilization of doctoral scientists and engineers (S/E) through 1987. The study, the fourth in a series that began in 1969, uses a new approach that explicitly incorporates the effect of the domestic market for highly trained S/E personnel upon the numbers of S/E doctorates awarded by American universities. In this improved approach, market conditions are assumed to affect the projected proportions of both S/E baccalaureates who enter graduate school and graduate enrollees who earn doctorates. The projected 1982 and 1987 supplies of doctorates in each broad S/E field are the summation of three components. The first is composed of those members of the 1977 doctoral labor force who are projected to be still employed at the later dates. The second component, about equal in size to the first, is doctorate recipients for 1977 through 1982 and 1983 through 1987. Before their inclusion in the projected supply, these estimates of future degree-recipients are adjusted to reflect the emigration of non-U.S. residents and any field-switching of the remaining new doctorates as they take their first jobs after graduation. The third, and smallest, component is the estimated number of future Ph.D. immigrants.

How do we objectively measure scientific activities? What proportion of economic activities should a society devote to research and development? How can public-sector and private-sector research best be directed to achieve social goals? Governments and researchers from industrial countries have been measuring science and technology for more than eighty years. This book provides the first comprehensive account of the attempts to measure science and technology activities in Western countries and the successes and shortcomings of statistical systems. Godin guides readers through the historical moments that led to the development of statistics on science and technology and also examines the socio-political dynamics behind social measurement. This enlightening account will be of interest to students and academics investigating science measurement as well as policy makers working in this burgeoning field.