Thanks to the continued advocacy of imaging scientists, as well as the strength of the imaging research community’s proposals, imaging research continues to do well at the NIH. In 2014, the total amount of research at the NIH that involves imaging grew by $160M (3.6%) to over $3.6B total (blue bars). This was a welcome change from the previous year when total imaging research saw its first reduction since 2001. With the slight increase in real dollars, imaging research accounts for around 12.1% of the total NIH budget (red line).

Imaging Research at NIH, All Projects in Nominal Dollars (Blue Bars) and as a Percent of All NIH Funding (Red LIne), Stimulus Funding Red Bars 

For all years included above, search terms included “Positron-Emission Tomography” or ultrasound tomography or radiology or MRI or “magnetic resonance” or “molecular imaging” or “optical imaging” or “imaging biomarkers” or “MR elastography” or “quantitative imaging” or “image analysis” or “image informatics” or “image guided”

While this method can’t control for the degree to which imaging was involved in each project, and may miss/include a small degree of non-germane projects, our goal is to measure the trend over time for a consistent set of imaging-related terms to capture the full scope of demand for imaging across all areas of NIH research.

Click HERE for the quick facts about the Academy of Radiology Research Ranking of Funding to Diagnostic Radiology from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).