Virtually every analysis of U.S. scientific and technical activity uses as its foundation the data on Federal research and development (R&D) spending collected through the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) surveys of Federal agencies. The data are used by government, academia, industry, and a host of nonprofit analytical and advocacy groups as the primary source of information about Federal spending on R&D. These data are also used by Federal agencies, the White House, and Congress as the basis for making budgetary and policy decisions about the Federal R&D enterprise. As a recent National Academies (2010) report states, the data are "used to reach conclusions about important and fundamental policy questions, such as whether a given field of research is being adequately funded, whether funding is balanced among fields, whether deficiencies in funding may be contributing to a loss of U.S. scientific competitiveness, and which agencies are most important for the health of a scientific discipline."