We Do The Sums: The Nih Funds 350-million R6.65-billion Of Research In Sa
R6.65-billion or 350-million. Thats how much South Africa receives in annual funding from the US governments National Institutes of Health.
Thats when the totals of direct grants, subgrants and funding from network studies are added up, numbers from the South African Medical Research Council and Bhekisisa s calculations show.
If South Africa loses all of its NIH funding, the country could lose 70 of its medical research capacity, Bhekisisas data teams sums reveal.
Close to three-quarters of the grants South African principal researchers were awarded by the NIH in 2023/24 were for projects linked to HIV or tuberculosis TB.
In todays newsletter , Mia Malan unpacks how SA could lose 70 of its research capacity if it loses all of its NIH funding. Sign up for our newsletter today.
R6.65-billion or 350-million. Thats how much South Africa receives in annual funding from the US governments National Institutes of Health NIH when the totals of direct grants, subgrants and funding from network studies are added up, numbers from the South African Medical Research Council and Bhekisisa s calculations show.
For direct grants, SA researchers are the main grant holders for a project and are responsible for its budget. In the case of subgrants, SA projects get research money from projects where the principal investigator is elsewhere likely at a US institution and network studies mean SA researchers who are part of a unit that runs clinical trials get awarded money for a study through that network.
The bulk of the NIHs budget supports scientists in the US whether in-house at the NIHs headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, or at universities and independent research facilities elsewhere in the country, and only a small sliver is paid directly to grant holders in other countries.
However, many of the projects with US scientists as the primary grant holders have extensive collaboration with researchers elsewhere. This means that a large part of the NIH funding awarded to US institutions is paid as subgrants to colleagues in other parts of the world including South Africa to set up studies for data collection and analysis, which bolsters research efforts in those countries.