Research funding for male reproductive health and infertility in the UK and USA [2016 – 2019]

Figures & data

Figure 1. Box-and-whisker plot with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of awards for UK infertility and reproductive health research under the three research categories: (i) male-based; (ii) female-based; and (iii) not-specified. A total of 18 projects were funded for male-based research, 40 projects for female-based, and 18 for not-specified by the UKRI and NIHR.

Table 1. Total funding awarded by the UKRI and NIHR agencies for infertility research groups along with annual allocated funding.

Funding period	Funding agency	Total funding for research grants and fellowships	Research categories
			Male-based (£)	Female-based (£)	Not-specified (£)
		(£000)*	[N]	[N]	[N]
2015/16	BBSRC	330,473	0	0	0
	EPSRC	691,280	0	0	0
	MRC	487,157	1,748,922	3,346,448	0
			[1]	[1]
	NIHR	268,000	0	214,625	0
				[1]
2016/17	BBSRC	331,062	1,328,455	0	695,839
			[3]		[2]
	EPSRC	733,188	958,032	0	0
			[1]
	MRC	341,630	676,826	3,259,734	1,444,459
			[2]	[6]	[1]
	NERC	190,519	0	0	51,390
					[1]
	NIHR	263,300	0	1,027,318	0
				[1]
2017/18	BBSRC	348,808	359,758	359,772	1,042,358
			[1]	[1]	[2]
	EPSRC	844,134	694,461	0	244,593
			[1]		[1]
	MRC	325,164	903,026	1,287,441	636,510
			[1]	[2]	[1]
	NERC	220,618	0	0	0
	NIHR	274,000	477,541	2,140,292	0
			[1]	[3]
2018/19	BBSRC	1,439,505**	934,840	1,719,275	2,276,094
			[2]	[4]	[4]
	EPSRC/UKRI		0	252,693	0
				[1]
	MRC		0	5,535,724	437,695
				[7]	[1]
	NIHR	269,600	507,909	165,595	1,333,890
			[1]	[1]	[2]
2019/20	BBSRC	1,401,130**	1,139,195	779,165	0
			[2]	[2]
	EPSRC/UKRI		1,230,976	766,542	1,455,327
			[1]	[1]	[1]
	MRC		807,249	1,564,917	323,754
			[1]	[4]	[1]
	NERC		0	0	611,514
					[1]
	NIHR	321,200	0	7,431,405	0
				[5]
Total Funding (£)			11,767,190	29,850,945	10,553,423
			[18]	[40]	[18]

Values collected are rounded to the nearest £Sterling pound. [N] refers to the number of projects awarded. *Total funding for research grants and fellowships (in millions) by the respective UKRI councils and NIHR were determined by consulting their public annual budgeting reports; **As of the funding period 2018/19 and onwards, all UKRI councils report their annual expenditures as one, therefore the annual expenditure for research and innovation were obtained from the UKRI’s annual reports.

Table 2. Summary of the UK awarded research by the UKRI and NIHR.

	Research categories
	Male-based	Female-based	Not-Specified
	[N = 18]	[N = 40]	[N = 18]
Total (£)	11,767,190	29,850,945	10,553,423
Mean	653,733	746,274	586,301
(SD)	(384,131)	(690,065)	(387,951)
Median	507,197	476,163	463,394
(IQR)	(423,630–789,793)	(308,001–914,762)	(328,457–630,261)

All values are rounded to the nearest £Sterling pound. SD, standard deviation of the data group; IQR, interquartile range which encompasses 50% of the data group.

Table 3. The UK Proportion of Funding for Infertility Research.

Funding period	UK agency	Total research grants and fellowships	Total funding proportion for infertility research	Male-based funding proportion	Female-based funding proportion	Not-specified funding proportion
		(£)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)
2015/16	MRC	487,157,000	1.05	0.36	0.69	0
	NIHR	268,000,000	0.08	0	0.08	0
2016/17	MRC	341,630,000	1.58	0.2	0.95	0.42
	NIHR	263,300,000	0.39	0	0.39	0
2017/18	MRC	325,164,000	0.87	0.28	0.4	0.19
	NIHR	274,000,000	0.96	0.17	0.78	0
2018/19	NIHR	269,600,000	0.74	0.19	0.06	0.49
2019/20	NIHR	321,200,000	2.31	0	2.31	0
Total	NIHR	1,396,100,000	0.87	0.07	0.79	0.1

The estimated proportion of funding for the UK was calculated using the data collected from Table 1. The proportions are rounded 2 decimal points. The total research grants and fellowship values were obtained from the respective UK agency’s annual reports and budgets. The MRC total research grants and fellowships from 2018/19 – 2019/20 were excluded as they are part of the UKRI and report their annual expenditures under one with other research councils, therefore the exact sum for research grants and fellowships for MRC was not available. The total funding proportion is only looking at NIHR funding from 2015/16 to 2019/20.

Table 4. Current total funding for infertility research awarded by the NIH's funding institutes and the respective fiscal years.

Fiscal year	NIH’s funding institutes & centres	Total funding for research grants	Research categories
			Male-based ($)	Female-based ($)	Not-specified ($)
		($)*	[N]	[N]	[N]
2016	NCCIH	107,447,348	0	1,439,100	0
				[1]
	NIAID	2,983,260,567	0	2,219,320	0
				[2]
	NICHD	1,021,132,045	4,927,677	5,183,197	6,573,877
			[7]	[8]	[4]
	NIDDK	1,580,485,601	0	95,610	0
				[1]
	NIEHS	407,288,463	1,784,198	3,890,638	233,712
			[4]	[6]	[1]
	NIGMS	2,231,411,724	4,822,891	0	8,085,074
			[3]		[5]
2017	NHBLI	2,463,498,743	0	2,568,489	0
				[1]
	NIA	1,708,012,380	536,946	0	0
			[1]
	NIAAA	342,212,488	0	0	398,788
					[1]
	NICHD	967,265,488	12,430,159	13,078,769	7,325,909
			[15]	[14]	[5]
	NIEHS	1,638,513,361	1,841,716	2,076,388	1,829,137
			[1]	[1]	[2]
	NIGMS	411,526,579	2,831,714	3,105,261	2,776,900
			[3]	[1]	[2]
2018	NIA	2,053,235,620	0	118,485	0
				[1]
	NIAID	3,339,613,240	0	868,774	0
				[1]
	NICHD	1,028,491,002	8,755,795	17,441,843	2,396,625
			[13]	[19]	[5]
	NIDDK	1,613,382,619	0	0	85,224
					[1]
	NIEHS	458,275,648	4,412,912	3,443,045	1,943,533
			[3]	[4]	[1]
	NIGMS	2,506,055,218	2,537,197	3,231,516	1,971,230
			[3]	[3]	[1]
	NIOSH	Unavailable**	169,500	0	0
			[1]
2019	NIAID	3,496,548,418	0	2,668,689	0
				[1]
	NIBIB	381,987,928	0	0	1,259,032
					[1]
	NICHD	1,099,202,749	8,395,362	18,668,208	0
			[16]	[31]
	NIEHS	454,787,252	1,095,907	1,792,109	0
			[1]	[2]
	NIGMS	2,558,317,976	2,364,252	888,154	1,064,618
			[3]	[1]	[1]
	NINR	129,862,737	0	495,303	0
				[1]
	OD	594,535,751	1,505,963	0	0
			[1]
2020	NICHD	1,133,572,974	0	0	218,250
					[1]
	NIEHS	466,088,243	845,557	0	0
			[1]
Current total funding ($)			59,257,746	83,272,898	36,161,909
			[76]	[99]	[31]

Values collected are rounded to the nearest US $dollar. [N] refers to the number of projects awarded. From the start of data collection to the analysis, 7 projects changed their statuses from active to completed, making 138 projects out of 206 as active running. 67 of the 138 projects do not provide complete funding sums by the NIH, therefore, the funds were totalled up to their most recent awarding FY. *The values for the annual spending of research grants by the NIH (in millions) was found in the NIH’s RePORT Funding site: The Research Grants: Awards and Total Funding, by type and Institute/Centre. **The values were not made available by the NIH.

Table 5. Summary statistics of the USA awarded research by the NIH.

	Research categories
	Male-based	Female-based	Not-specified
	[N = 76]	[N = 99]	[N = 31]
Current total ($)	59,257,746	83,272,898	36,161,909
Mean	779,707	841,140	1,194,687
(SD)	(594,203)	(862,707)	(1,046,679)
Median	718,541	511,781	1,223,600
(IQR)	(193,449–1,117,370)	(227,847–1,246,408)	(388,397–1,891,778)

All values presented are rounded to the nearest US dollar and produced using RStudio.

Figure 2. Box-and-whisker plot has a 95% CI of the funding collected for USA infertility and reproductive health research under the three research focus categories: (i) male-based; (ii) female-based; and (iii) not-specified. A total of 76 projects were funded for male-based, 99 projects for female-based, and 31 for not-specified group by the NIH agencies.

Table 6. The current total NICHD proportion of funding for infertility research.

Fiscal year	NIH agency		Total research grants and fellowships	Total funding proportion for infertility research	Male-based funding proportion	Female-based funding proportion	Not-specified funding proportion
			($)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)
2016	NICHD		1,021,132,045	1.63	0.48	0.51	0.64
2017	NICHD		967,265,488	3.39	1.29	1.35	0.75
2018	NICHD		1,028,491,002	2.78	0.85	1.7	0.23
2019	NICHD		1,099,202,749	2.46	0.76	1.7	0
Total	NICHD		4,116,091,284	2.56	0.83	1.32	0.4

The estimated proportion of funding for the USA was calculated using the data collected from Table 4. FY2020 was excluded as only one project was awarded between 1^st October and 31^st December 2019 and would be unreflective of the funding proportion for this year. The total proportion looks at the total funding provided by the NICHD for infertility research from 2016 to 2019 and the total research funding granted by the NICHD. The annual research grants and fellowship values were obtained from the NIH’s RePORT Budget and Spending site: The Research Grants: Awards and Total Funding, by type and Institute/Centre.

Data availability statement

The data underlying this article are available in the Dryad Digital Repository at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v9s4mw6wc (Gumerova et al., 2021).