  We present an analysis of the star formation properties of field galaxies
within the local volume out to a recession velocity limit of 3000 km/s. A
parent sample of 863 star-forming galaxies is used to calculate a B-band
luminosity function. This is then populated with star formation information
from a subsample of 327 galaxies, for which we have H alpha imaging, firstly by
calibrating a relationship between galaxy B-band luminosity and star formation
rate, and secondly by a Monte Carlo simulation of a representative sample of
galaxies, in which star formation information is randomly sampled from the
observed subset. The total star formation rate density of the local Universe is
found to be between 0.016 and 0.023 MSun/yr/cubic Mpc, with the uncertainties
being dominated by the internal extinction correction used in converting
measured H alpha fluxes to star formation rates. If our internally derived
B-band luminosity function is replaced by one from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
blue sequence, the star formation rate densities are approx. 60% of the above
values. We also calculate the contribution to the total star formation rate
density from galaxies of different luminosities and Hubble T-types. The largest
contribution comes from bright galaxies with B absolute mag of approx. -20 mag,
and the total contribution from galaxies fainter than -15.5 mag is less than
10%. Almost 60% of the star formation rate density comes from galaxies of types
Sb, Sbc or Sc; 9% from galaxies earlier than Sb and 33% from galaxies later
than Sc. Finally, 75 - 80% of the total star formation in the local Universe is
shown to be occurring in disk regions, defined as being >1 kpc from the centres
of galaxies.
