The Top American Research Universities - The Center for ...

The Top American Research Universities
The raw data used for The Top American Research Universities
project—obtained from federal agencies and national
organizations—often contain information on single-campus
institutions, multiple-campus institutions, and state university
systems, without clearly identifying the distinctions.
This makes national comparisons difficult and unreliable.
To increase the validity and usefulness of these data,
The Center adjusts the original reported figures, when
necessary, to ensure that all data represent the strength of a
single-campus institution. The Center bases its adjustments
on information gathered from the reporting agency or from
the university itself. In cases where the published data
represent a single campus, we do not adjust the data. When
the data represent more than one campus, we first attempt
to obtain a figure directly from the National Science
Foundation (NSF) (for research expenditures and postdoctorates),
from the institution itself, or from the university
system office that submitted the data. If unavailable
from those primary sources, we use an estimated or substitute
figure derived from information found on the institution’s
web site. As a last resort, we use prior-year data
as a substitute.
Data Notes
If the institution provides an estimate representing at least
97% of the originally published figure, we credit the full
amount to the main campus. Otherwise, we use the estimate
provided by the institution.
The Center does not adjust the private university data
because of multi-campus or system-wide reporting. We
treat all private universities in this study as single-campus
institutions because, while some may have multiple campuses,
they are generally in or around a single city and considered
an integral part of the main campus. Furthermore,
private institutions generally do not break out their data by
regional, branch, or affiliated campus as often happens
with public institutions.
The following tables outline the various adjustments or
substitutions that we made to the original data. The tables
list institutions alphabetically and include both private and
public universities. For the purpose of this report, we provide
notes for institutions with more than $40 million in
fiscal year 2006 federal research. Data notes for all other
research universities are available on The Center web site
[http://mup.asu.edu].
2008 Annual Report
217