UCSF is No. 1 Public Recipient of National Institutes of Health Funding in 2022

UC San Francisco received the most funding of any public institution from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2022 for the 16th year running. UCSF was second highest among all the public and private institutions in the country.

The University’s total funding came to $823 million, setting a record for NIH funding to a public university.

Shabrina Amirruddin sits at a lab bench pipetting
Postdoctoral scholar Shabrina Amirruddin, PhD, working in the Sneddon lab at UCSF. Photo by Noah Berger

UCSF Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy, as well as the Graduate Division, received 1,510 NIH grants and contracts during the fiscal year that ended in September of 2022. These highly competitive grants and awards support a wide range of basic, translational, social and population health sciences research, as well as education.

“NIH funding enables researchers at UCSF to explore biology and develop and test new treatments, and it is a lifeline for our scientific training programs,” said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS. “This year’s totals underscore the relevance and importance of our research in so many areas, from curiosity-based science to cancer to COVID-19.”

UCSF’s Schools of Dentistry, Medicine and Pharmacy were first among their national peers, and the School of Nursing was first among public nursing schools and fourth overall.

The School of Medicine received $751 million in funding. The School of Pharmacy, the top school in its field for 43 years, received $30 million. The school of Dentistry received $24 million. And the School of Nursing received $13 million.

This enables the excellence of our programs in educating the next generation of scientists and clinicians.

Catherine Lucey, MD

The Graduate Division received more than $29 million in training grants, the largest amount given to a public institution, and the third highest overall. These funds support the division’s 19 science and social science doctoral programs, 11 science and health master’s programs, two professional doctorates, and over 1,000 post-doctoral scholars.

Combined with UCSF’s Discovery Fellows Program, these NIH grants ensure that all first- and second-year basic and biomedical sciences PhD students at UCSF receive full financial support.

“The funding from NIH is critical in supporting high-quality science across the translational spectrum – from discovery to population health. It is also essential funding for our students and trainees, who contribute so much to research at UCSF,” said Catherine Lucey, MD, executive vice chancellor and provost at UCSF. “This enables the excellence of our programs in educating the next generation of scientists and clinicians.”

UCSF’s NIH Funding by Year, 1992-2022

Top NIH Funding Recipients, 2022

1. Johns Hopkins University: $839,852,301
2. UC San Francisco: $823,760,533
3. University of Pittsburgh: $675,447,236
4. Duke University: $672,506,294
5. University of Pennsylvania: $668,378,172
6. Stanford University: $651,714,427
7. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: $644,315,349
8. Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.: $625,102,662
9. Washington University St. Louis: $620,587,925
10. Columbia University Health Sciences: $616,772,648

Top NIH Funding by Area or Researcher, 2022

Graduate Division Training Grants

1. University of Pennsylvania: $35,240,948
2. Johns Hopkins University: $34,902,429
3. UC San Francisco: $29,306,159
4. University of Washington: $26,998,734
5. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: $26,014,104

School of Dentistry

1. UC San Francisco: $24,024,717
2. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: $19,989,597
3. University of Southern California: $19,090,823
4. University of Pennsylvania: $15,955,129
5. New York University: $14,570,072

School of Medicine

1. UC San Francisco: $751,039,395
2. Stanford University: $584,073,475
3. Washington University St. Louis: $569,371,884
4. Johns Hopkins University: $567,352,370
5. University of Pennsylvania: $551,423,454

School of Nursing

1. Columbia University Health Sciences: $18,738,705
2. University of Pennsylvania: $18,183,342
3. Emory University: $15,030,322
4. UC San Francisco: $13,235,743
5. University of Alabama Birmingham: $9,405,898

School of Pharmacy

1. UC San Francisco: $30,217,559
2. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: $27,585,468
3. University of Florida: $22,488,999
4. University of New Mexico Health Sciences: $17,861,727
5. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: $14,367,469

Top UCSF NIh recipients: principal investigators and centers


2. Harold Collard, MD, MS, CTSI, $10.7 million
3. Alan Ashworth, PhD, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, $9 million
4. Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, $8.4 million
5. Diane Havlir, MD, HIV and TB research $7.4 million

Source: Annual school rankings of NIH funding are based on the most current government data as compiled by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.