Federal Funding and Citation Metrics of US Biomedical Researchers, 1996 to 2022

Abstract

Importance: Both citation and funding metrics converge in shaping current perceptions of academic success. Objective: To evaluate what proportion of the most-cited US-based scientists are funded by biomedical federal agencies and whether funded scientists are more cited than nonfunded ones. Design, Setting, and Participants: This survey study used linkage of a Scopus-based database on top-cited US researchers (according to a composite citation metric) and the National Institutes of Health RePORTER database of federal funding (33 biomedical federal agencies). Matching was based on name and institution. US-based top-cited scientists who were allocated to any of 69 scientific subfields highly related to biomedicine were considered in the main analysis. Data were downloaded on June 11, 2022. Main Outcomes and Measures: Proportion of US-based top-cited biomedical scientists who had any (1996-2022), recent (2015-2022), and current (2021-2022) funding. Comparisons of funded and nonfunded scientists assessed total citations and a composite citation index. Results: There were 204603 records in RePORTER (1996-2022) and 75316 US-based top-cited scientists in the career-long citation database; 40887 scientists were included in the main analysis. The proportion of US-based top-cited biomedical scientists (according to career-long citation impact) who had received any federal funding from biomedical research agencies was 62.7% (25650 of 40887) for any funding (1996-2022), 23.1% (9427 of 40887) for recent funding (2015-2022), and 14.1% (5778 of 40887) for current funding (2021-2022). Respective proportions were 64.8%, 31.4%, and 20.9%, for top-cited scientists according to recent single-year citation impact. There was large variability across scientific subfields (eg, current funding: 31% of career-long impact top-cited scientists in geriatrics, 30% in bioinformatics and 29% in developmental biology, but 0% in legal and forensic medicine, general psychology and cognitive sciences, and gender studies). Funded top-cited researchers were overall more cited than nonfunded top-cited scientists (median [IQR], 9594 [5650-1703] vs 5352 [3057-9890] citations; P