National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funding Analysis: - Fiscal Year

Key Chapter Title List

1. NIH Funding Overview: FY 1996-2025 Budget Requests
2. Funding Sources
3. NIH Funding Details: FY 2023-2025 Budget Requests
4. FY 2024 Enacted Budget
5. FY 2025 Budget Request
6. Funding Trend Analysis
7. Specific Program Funding Details
8. Abbreviations and Acronyms Explanation

Document Introduction

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), as the federal government's core agency leading biomedical, health, and behavioral research, directly influences the direction of global medical research through its budget appropriation mechanisms and funding allocation strategies. This report, prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), focuses on NIH funding dynamics from FY 1996 to 2025, with a key analysis of the core content of the FY 2024 enacted budget and the FY 2025 budget request, providing authoritative reference for policymakers, research administrators, and researchers in related fields.

The report systematically outlines NIH's organizational structure and funding operation model: NIH consists of 27 Institutes and Centers (ICs) and the Office of the Director (OD). Since 2022, it has included the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) as an independent agency, focusing on high-potential, high-impact biomedical research. In terms of fund allocation, nearly 83% is used for extramural research (supporting universities and research institutions through grants, contracts, etc.), about 11% is invested in intramural research, and the remaining 6% is used for administrative, infrastructure, and other matters. Funding primarily comes from the annual Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) appropriations bill, supplemented by a small amount of funding from the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (INT) appropriations bill and mandatory funding for type 1 diabetes research.

The total program funding for NIH in FY 2024 was $47.311 billion, marking the first year-over-year decrease of 0.8% since 2013. The primary reason was the reduction in the 21st Century Cures Act Innovation Account funding from $1.085 billion in 2023 to $407 million in 2024. Despite the overall funding decrease, Congress still directed increased funding support for areas such as Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and mental health through report language. The FY 2025 budget request proposes total funding of $50.174 billion for NIH and ARPA-H, a year-over-year increase of 2.8%. It also includes two new mandatory funding proposals: $1.448 billion for the Cancer Moonshot and $2.69 billion for a five-year pandemic preparedness initiative. If approved, the total funding would reach $54.312 billion, representing an 11.3% year-over-year increase.

Through dual analysis of nominal funding and inflation-adjusted funding (based on the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index, BRDPI), the report reveals long-term trends in NIH funding: the budget doubled from FY 1999 to 2003 (with annual growth of 14%-16%), growth slowed from FY 2003 to 2015 with nominal decreases in some years, and after continuous growth from FY 2016 to 2023, funding declined again in FY 2024. Inflation-adjusted data shows that the purchasing power of funding in FY 2023 (including ARPA-H) was slightly higher than the peak in FY 2003, but by FY 2024 it had fallen to 2.7% below that peak.

Furthermore, the report details the funding allocation for each Institute and Center, the annual funding flow of the 21st Century Cures Act Innovation Account, and the key research areas receiving directed support in FY 2024-2025 (such as women's health, mental health, infectious disease prevention and control, cancer research, etc.). It provides comprehensive data support and policy interpretation for understanding the priority adjustments and strategic direction of U.S. federal medical research investment.