NIH RePORTER Grants Scraper

Search and normalize NIH-funded research grants from the NIH RePORTER API — the official database of all NIH-funded projects. Returns cleaned, enriched data with normalized PI names, organization names, agency/IC codes, and spending categories.

Features

• 🔍 Full-text search across project titles, abstracts, PI names, or organization names
• 🧹 Data normalization — messy NIH data gets cleaned:
  • Agency abbreviations (NCI → "National Cancer Institute")
  • Activity codes (R01 → "Research Project Grant")
  • Organization names (abbreviation expansion, title-case)
  • PI names (extra spaces removed, consistent casing)
  • Spending categories (numeric codes → human-readable labels)
• 📊 Flexible filtering by fiscal year, agency/IC code, activity code
• 📄 Three output formats: Full dataset (JSON), summary table (text), run statistics
• 🆓 No API key required — NIH RePORTER is completely free and open

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	string	✅	Search term (e.g., "immunotherapy", "CRISPR", "Alzheimer")
searchField	select	No	Where to search: all, projectTitle, abstract, piName, orgName (default: all)
fiscalYears	array	No	Filter by fiscal years (e.g., [2024, 2025])
agencyCodes	array	No	Filter by NIH agency/IC (e.g., ["NCI", "NIAID"])
activityCodes	array	No	Filter by activity code (e.g., ["R01", "R21"])
sortField	select	No	Sort by: project_start_date, award_amount, _score (default: project_start_date)
sortOrder	select	No	asc or desc (default: desc)
maxResults	integer	No	Max results 1-1000 (default: 50)

Example Input

{
  "searchQuery": "immunotherapy cancer",
  "searchField": "abstract",
  "fiscalYears": [2024, 2025],
  "agencyCodes": ["NCI"],
  "maxResults": 25
}

Example Output (Dataset Item)

{
  "projectNumber": "1R01CA287654-01A1",
  "projectTitle": "Novel Immunotherapy Approaches for Metastatic Melanoma",
  "applicationId": 10567890,
  "fiscalYear": 2025,
  "organization": {
    "name": "JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY",
    "nameNormalized": "Johns Hopkins University",
    "city": "BALTIMORE",
    "state": "MD",
    "country": "UNITED STATES",
    "type": "10",
    "typeLabel": "Domestic Higher Education"
  },
  "principalInvestigators": [
    {
      "firstName": "Sarah",
      "lastName": "Chen",
      "fullName": "Sarah Chen",
      "isContact": true
    }
  ],
  "agencyAdmin": {
    "code": "NCI",
    "name": "National Cancer Institute"
  },
  "activityCode": "R01",
  "activityCodeLabel": "R01 — Research Project Grant",
  "awardAmount": 450000,
  "isActive": true,
  "spendingCategories": [
    {"code": 28, "label": "Cancer"},
    {"code": 220, "label": "Tumor Immunology"}
  ]
}

Use Cases

• Academic research offices — track competitor grant portfolios and funding trends
• Biotech & pharma — competitive intelligence on NIH-funded academic research
• Consulting firms — market analysis of NIH funding by disease area, institution, or region
• Nonprofits — monitor the NIH funding landscape for advocacy and strategy
• AI/ML researchers — build datasets of NIH-funded projects for analysis

Data Source

Data from the NIH RePORTER API v2, a free public API provided by the National Institutes of Health. Contains over 2.9 million funded projects dating back to 1985. No API key required.