Memo for 2025 SED Questionnaire Revised 3-2025

Memorandum

Date: March 27, 2025

To: Office of Management and Budget

From: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics

U.S. National Science Foundation

Via: Suzanne Plimpton, Reports Clearance Officer

National Science Foundation

Subject: Non-substantive change request in the 2025 Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) OMB Control Number 3145-0019

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Summary of Request: Following the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget’s guidance issued on February 11, 2025, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) within the U.S. National Science Foundation is submitting a non-substantive change request to update sex questions used in the 2025 Survey of Earned Doctorates in accordance with Executive Order (EO) 14168 (Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government), EO 14148 (Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions), and NCSES programmatic needs.

Description of Change Requested: NCSES requests the suspension of the current on-going collection of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) questions, and a revision of the sex assigned at birth question. The SOGI items were added to the 2025 Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) to comply with EOs 13985 and 14075, which have now been revoked by EO 14148. Removing the SOGI items and revising the sex assigned at birth item as described below will enable compliance with EOs 14148 and 14168, will ensure improved alignment between NCSES programmatic needs and the SED content, and will reduce respondent burden by approximately 15 seconds per remaining SED respondent.¹

The request includes:

[X] Revision of an existing question

[X] Deletion of an existing question

Type of Change	Question/Item	Requested change
Initial Question Revision	Sex Assigned At Birth (C14)	Change question wording from “What sex were you assigned at birth, on your original birth certificate?” to “What is your sex?” Two response options “Male” and “Female” will remain the same
Follow up Question Deletion	Gender Identity (C15)	Delete question “How do you currently describe yourself?” and six response options
Question Deletion	Sexual Orientation (C16)	Delete question “Which of the following best represents how you think of yourself?” and five response options

1 NCSES estimated that approximately 58,000 individuals would participate in the 2025 SED. The 2025 SED data collection period is halfway completed and, as a result, NCSES estimates that 29,000 individuals remain to participate in the 2025 SED. The 15-second respondent burden reduction will result in an estimated total burden reduction of 121 hours to the 2025 SED survey respondents.