  Online bibliographic databases have enabled new research through which
bibliographic records are analyzed as data about science. Within these records,
the acknowledgements sections of papers are often used to draw conclusions
about funding support for published research. While acknowledgements and
funding statements can be informative for research and policy development, this
poster adds to a body of literature that highlights limitations of funding data
for scientometric and policy research, using evidence gathered from a
questionnaire of authors of astronomy journal articles. The study shows that
only 71.4% of a sample of authors of papers tied to NSF grants through
acknowledgements reported in the survey that NSF funded the research presented
in the respective papers. A brief analysis of the questionnaire followed by
recommendations and considerations for further research are presented. The
discrepancy in reporting appears to indicate that funding streams can be fluid
and not always apparent to authors, overall raising the question of what sorts
of research should be addressed with funding statements, where conceptually
tying a paper directly to a grant is not straightforward.
