The Federal Demonstration Partnership has published the 2012 Faculty Workload Survey Research Report. In 2012, the FDP conducted a survey of principal investigators of federally funded projects to determine the impact of federal regulations and requirements on research. The FDP received responses from 13,453 PIs (a 26% response rate) from 111 FDP member institutions.
The new report states that overall, “PIs reported that almost half of their available research time for federal projects had to be allocated to project-related requirements instead of the content of their research projects. PIs estimated that an average of 42% of their research time associated with federally funded projects was spent on meeting requirements rather than conducting active research.” The 2012 results are similar to those found in the 2005 FDP Faculty Workload Survey, “suggesting little change since the original survey was conducted.”
See the 105-page Report and the FDP Faculty Standing Committee documents for detailed analysis and background.