{"doi":"10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.45590","title":"Federal Funding and Citation Metrics of US Biomedical Researchers, 1996 to 2022","abstract":"<h4>Importance</h4>Both citation and funding metrics converge in shaping current perceptions of academic success.<h4>Objective</h4>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.<h4>Design, setting, and participants</h4>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.<h4>Main outcomes and measures</h4>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.<h4>Results</h4>There were 204 603 records in RePORTER (1996-2022) and 75 316 US-based top-cited scientists in the career-long citation database; 40 887 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% (25 650 of 40 887) for any funding (1996-2022), 23.1% (9427 of 40 887) for recent funding (2015-2022), and 14.1% (5778 of 40 887) 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 < .001) and substantial difference remained after adjusting for subfield and years since first publication. Differences were more prominent in some specific biomedical subfields.<h4>Conclusions and relevance</h4>In this survey study, biomedical federal funding had offered support to approximately two-thirds of the top-cited biomedical scientists at some point during the last quarter century, but only a small minority of top-cited scientists had current federal biomedical funding. The large unevenness across subfields needs to be addressed with ways that improve equity, efficiency, excellence, and translational potential.","journal":"JAMA Network Open","year":2022,"id":10094,"datarank":0.32958368660043297,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"self_citation_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0537,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-12-07","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":18176,"name":"Iztok Hozo","orcid":"0000-0003-2349-5707","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18177,"name":"Benjamin Djulbegović","orcid":"0000-0003-0671-1447","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":24,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}