Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 1 · Medical research
How much does NIH spend on medical research each year?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
NIH funded $42.2 billion of research projects in fiscal 2025, up from $27.8 billion in 2012, before adjusting for inflation. The most in a year was $43.6 billion, in fiscal 2023; the dip in 2013 was the federal budget cut known as sequestration. These are the projects NIH lists in RePORTER, grants and its own labs; NIH's full budget, which also pays for buildings and running the agency, is larger.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: NIH RePORTER (National Institutes of Health) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Sep 30, 2025
Open the chart and its numbersTeachers: make your own chart assignment, or change this one. Free, no account needed.