News Release

Friday, September 4, 2009

New NIH Tool Makes Funding Data, Research Results and Products Searchable

Comprehensive funding information for NIH grants and contracts is now available on the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT) thanks to a new, user-friendly system called the RePORT Expenditures and Results, or RePORTER. RePORTER combines NIH project databases and funding records, PubMed abstracts, full-text articles from PubMed Central, and information from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with a robust search engine, allowing users to locate descriptions and funding details on NIH-funded projects along with research results that cite the NIH support.

"With the addition of RePORTER, we have taken a big step toward providing NIH's broad community of stakeholders — including biomedical researchers, research administrators, science policy makers, and members of the general public — with richer information, accessible in a form designed to meet their diverse set of needs," said Sally Rockey, Ph.D., acting deputy director of extramural research. "In addition to a being a public service to our stakeholders, it's a good example of the transparency and openness in government that the public deserves and has come to expect."

User-defined searches allow the public to refine, export and analyze results and provide insights into NIH spending, as well as research results across NIH-funded projects, institutions, investigators or scientific concepts. Searching for grants funded by the Recovery Act is made especially easy by a checkbox that limits searches to that area of interest.

Plans for improvements in RePORTER include allowing users to personalize their experience. NIH's goal is to provide users the ability to save favorite searches, set alerts for new grants, publications and patents, and even export the entire RePORTER database.

RePORTER is the newest tool on the RePORT website, NIH's comprehensive online repository of reports, data and analyses of research-related funding. RePORT provides a wealth of data on NIH's research-related grant and contract funding, including general reports and statistics, funding by research, condition and disease categories, new data visualization tools, and more. Dynamic reports and geographic mapping tools offer unparalleled access to information on NIH's Recovery Act grant funding on an individual project, state or national level.

RePORT is available at RePORT.nih.gov. The project search tool, RePORTER, is available through the RePORT site or by going directly to ProjectRePORTER.nih.gov.

The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available athttp://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®

###