This analysis compares the efforts devoted to research and development (R&D) in education with those devoted to R&D in health and agriculture. Specifically, it characterizes the size and institutional arrangement of the educational R&D community and compares it on a common basis with the agricultural and medical R&D communities. The analysis is structured around performance in man-years of effort by institutional setting and sponsorship in dollars by institutional setting. The results indicate that, as compared with agriculture and health, research and development in education has the following characteristics: a) it has a much smaller proportion of the total value of production; b) it is sponsored almost entirely by the federal government; c) it is performed in much greater proportion at universities; and d) it is not performed by federal agencies. The report does not argue for more educational R&D but for a determination of the structural similarities and differences which exist in the agriculture, education, and health R&D systems as a preliminary to the ultimate objective of knowing how to improve systems for conducting R&D. (Included are appendixes of related charts and tables and a bibliography.) (Author/JA)