The RCDC is a system that reports on the research grants, contracts and funds issued by the National Institutes of Health. It gives scientists and other members of the public a way to see how the agency uses tax dollars to fund health projects and studies.

Why the NIH Developed the RCDC

The NIH is the country's medical research agency and receives funds from the U.S. government. It also supports biomedical research around the world. The NIH is the organization from which many U.S. and international researchers secure funds to study health conditions and diseases.

Prior to 2008, the NIH released regular spending reports using data and text mining. However, the agency recognized that its process could be more consistent and modern. The National Academy of Sciences also issued two reports of its own in 1998 and 2003 to recommend a change in how the NIH reported spending on research contracts, grants and funds for projects.

In 2004, the agency tested a new computerized process on a small scale. The process demonstrated that there was potential to sort funded research studies and projects into categories while maintaining accuracy.

Understanding the importance and value of having a more consistent, transparent system, the U.S. Congress issued a mandate in 2006. In the NIH Reform Act, it added a requirement to build a system that categorizes the research funds, contracts and grants. This is when the NIH expanded the small-scale system that it tested in 2004 into the full-scale RCDC that it uses now.

The system integrates sophisticated text and data mining with NIH definitions to place projects into categories. Its definitions include a list of concepts and terms that scientific experts selected to define each research category. This eliminates inconsistency. By January 2009, the agency had incorporated the RCDC into its Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools website.

Using the RCDC

The RCDC provides a complete list of all research contracts, grants and funds that the NIH issues according to each category. The system includes 265 categories as of April 2017. Scientists and members of the public can click on a category to see all of its project listings. They can also download and print the details.

Some of the spending amounts may differ from the reports that the NIH issued before fiscal year 2008. This is because the RCDC sorts funded research differently than before. Despite this, the NIH uses the same methods to budget and spend the tax dollars that it receives from the government.

On the RePORT website, the RCDC table also includes disease burden data that the National Center for Health Statistics publishes. The NIH started to include this prevalence and mortality data in the RCDC table in 2016. The data helps the public and policymakers understand how NIH research relates to public health needs.

Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2017

The NIH doesn't issue research grants, contracts and funds according to category. The fiscal year estimates for 2017 could change based on its budget, the actual projects funded and science itself. However, below is an overview of the most recent, published 2017 funding estimates (Published: February 10, 2016).

 View historical RCDC data for 2012 - 2015 (actual) and estimates for 2016 and 2017, which are based on the actual RCDC data.