The origin of the medical research grant in the United States: the Rockefeller Foundation and the NIH Extramural Funding Program

[Medical philanthropy in the United States]

Philanthropic foundations played a crucial role in rationalizating and organizing American society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The promotion of science was applied to medical reform, leading to the advent of genuine medical research within the framework of brand-new university hospital faculties. With the two world wars, the state became heavily involved in the field of healthcare. After 1945, it became the main source of funding for biomedical research. Philanthropy did not disappear from the institutional landscape; it continued to work in tandem with public authorities. Its role in medical research is now minor in terms of funding volume, but a strategic one in the development of projects aimed at advancing basic science and knowledge of various diseases.

Analyzing Funding Patterns and Their Evolution in Two Medical Research Topics

This paper analyzes funding patterns and their evolution in two medical research topics: breast cancer and ovarian cancer, taking into account cross-agency and cross-national co-funding. A bibliometric analysis of 355[Formula: see text]463 papers from PubMed (273[Formula: see text]526 on breast cancer and 81[Formula: see text]937 on ovarian cancer) brought back 91 funding agencies involved in breast cancer and 65 in ovarian cancer. Additionally, the paper examined the evolution of medical subject headings (MESH) funded by agencies. An analysis of patterns in funding, co-funding, MESH, and their evolution, was carried out using social network analysis (SNA) methodology. The results show the importance of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in both breast and ovarian cancer. The NCI achieves its policy goals by co-funding its programs with both national and cross-national agencies. Moreover, the MESH agencies co-funded in the two years studied coincided; however, it must be said that the number of agencies which participated in research funding also increased.