NIH confidential

Former US National Cancer Institute director speaks candidly about the world’s largest public biomedical funder

As recent Funding Insight articles have related, the bureaucratic load when applying for funding from institutions in the United States can be considerable, but so too can the rewards, which are not only monetary—there is a fair amount of prestige involved as well.

With its budget of $45.1 billion in 2022, making it the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, the National Institutes of Health is perhaps the most logical target for overseas researchers seeking funding. While most NIH awards are only open to US researchers, the NIH’s non-US grant funding still added up to more than $290 million in 2020, with over 600 grants awarded for projects in 66 countries.