Our Health

  • Helping people live longer, healthier lives
  • Making diseases less deadly
  • Developing effective interventions to prevent and treat illness and disability

Our Society

  • Supporting jobs in science and spurring economic growth
  • Enabling a more productive economy
  • Helping the U.S. compete and contribute internationally

Our Knowledge

  • Driving the discovery and translation of innovative ideas
  • Building the knowledge base to combat major health challenges
  • Cultivating world-class scientists who create new knowledge

Our Stories

  • Discovering a new class of rare diseases and showing that existing drugs can help patients
  • Guiding the development of technologies that restore lost neurological function
  • Helping to end the leading cause of childhood bacterial meningitis

NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, investing more than $30 billion in taxpayer dollars to achieve its mission to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. In pursuing this mission, NIH improves health by promoting treatment and prevention, contributes to society by driving economic growth and productivity, and expands the biomedical knowledge base by funding cutting-edge research and cultivating the biomedical workforce of today and tomorrow.

Evidence of the varied, long-term impacts of NIH activities comes from a variety of sources, ranging from studies of individual diseases, to broader analyses of NIH as a whole. Explore the sections above to discover more about how NIH provides value for the public’s investment.

Learn More About NIH

  • Research Matters — weekly update of recent NIH research highlights
  • NIH RePORT — reports, data, and analyses of NIH research activities
  • NIH Clinical Trials — overview of NIH-funded clinical trials and how you can participate
  • Celebration of Science: NIH Highlights — spotlighting remarkable advances from NIH-supported scientists
  • NIH Home Page — learn how NIH and its 27 institutes and centers work
  • NIH Director’s blog — Dr. Francis Collins discusses new discoveries and latest trends in biomedical research and medicine
  • NIH Record — biweekly NIH newsletter that covers issues of significance to NIH staff, contractors, and trainees 

NIH Research News