This chart summarizes the funds that NIH received from Congress over the years. It was published in the congressional report. When adjusted for inflation, the effective amount of funds is back to its peak value from 2003. It seems that in the last twenty years, funding for research has stagnated at best. The amount of funds may not be directly correlated to the outcome (at least not in biomedical research), but the fact that funding is not increasing may forecast future negative effects because of the following reasons:
- Researchers still conduct research more or less in the same way they did 20 years ago and it is not possible that everyone has become frugal over the years.
- New research centers are being opened,
- PhDs are being overproduced in a revolving door manner as someone needs to work both in the current and the new labs.
All this points out that there is less funding per capita than before. Given the current economic factors that almost everyone is aware of, it is unlikely that effective funding will increase.
The total amount of funds awarded to COVID-related projects so far has been $4.9 billion. It was not awarded in one year but over the last three years. Therefore, the average is $1.63 billion. Since the National Cancer Institute receives $6.9 billion per year, flu research now accounts for 24% of cancer research. This may change in either direction. The report contains 24 pages, with more details than what we summarized here.