We have updated our NIH funding curves and NSF funding curves to reflect the updates that were made in the data we use for creating the NIH and NSF funding curves. We also refined the way in which we visualize these funding curves, with those changes detailed further in the following sections. This information and more is included in the Methods section for the funding curves.
NIH Funding Curve Updates
The previous iteration of the NIH funding curves used FY 2025 ExPORTER data that was published on 02/09/2026. However, ExPORTER has since updated the data on 03/09/2026. We are now using the latest FY 2025 and will be continously updating the data based on changes made by ExPORTER.
To better visualize “Award Notice Date” (NoAs) across fiscal years, including those that are leap years, we now normalize dates by moving any actions on Feb 29 to Feb 28, so that we can view all the grants across every FY.
We now exclude subprojects when summarizing obligation visualizations. This is because the parent project total award value typically includes all of the subprojects’ award values, so this filtering avoids double counting project and subproject funding. However, all projects and subprojects are still included in the data summaries used for visualizations of the number of grants.
In previous iterations of the funding curves, we used the sum of direct cost and indirect cost to determine the cumulative obligations. We found however that the “award_value” variable in RePORTER and the explicit “total_cost” variable in the historical ExPORTER data is more accurate and consistent with the obligation values published in the search results from NIH RePORTER.
NSF Funding Curve Updates
We now exclude grants that are transfers to new institutions or PIs, since these transfers duplicate the associated counts of a grant and affect the total number of grants awarded. However, this filtering out is not necessary for the obligation visualizations, because we get both the de-obligation and re-obligation of a grant that is transferred from USAspending.
Similar to the NIH funding curves, to better visualize “Award Notice Date” (NoAs) across fiscal years, including those that are leap years, we now normalize dates by moving any actions on Feb 29 to Feb 28, so that we can view all the grants across every FY.
As always, if you have any questions about our methodology or notice any issues/mistakes in our data, please feel free to reach out at info@grant-witness.us.