NIMH Funding History

The graph above shows NIMH’s funding history in actual dollars and constant 

FY 2016 dollars. The FY 2024 President’s Budget request is $2.5 billion. Figures 

include funding provided through the 21st Century Cures Act.

NIMH annually supports more than 3,000 

research grants and contracts at universities, 

academic health centers, and other research 

institutions across the country and around the 

world.

NIMH Quick Facts

In FY 2022, NIMH awarded grants to 98 

unique early-stage investigators and 209 

investigators with no other National 

Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding.

NIMH awarded 673 new and competing 

research project grants in FY 2022, with an 

estimated application success rate of 24 

percent.

The NIMH Intramural Research Program 

supports approximately 600 scientists, the 

majority of whom work on the NIH campus in 

Bethesda, Maryland. 

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for 

research on mental disorders. NIMH’s mission is to transform the understanding and 

treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for 

prevention, recovery, and cure. 

NIMH conducts and supports biomedical and behavioral research, health services 

research, research training, and health information dissemination with respect to the 

causes, diagnosis, treatment, management, and prevention of mental illnesses. 

NIMH is guided by its Strategic Plan for Research, a roadmap for the Institute’s 

research priorities, spanning fundamental science to public health impact. Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. 

Director of NIMH

FY 2024 Budget Fact Sheet
Contact NIMH

Office of Science Policy, 

Planning, and Communications

6001 Executive Boulevard

Room 6200, MSC 9663

Bethesda, MD 20892-9663

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@NIMHgov

Phone: 1-866-615-6464

Email: nimhinfo@nih.gov

Website: www.nimh.nih.gov

NIH Publication No. 23-MH-8199

The information in this publication is in the 

public domain and may be reused or copied 

without permission. However, you may not 

reuse or copy the images. Please cite the National Institute of Mental Health as the source. 

Read our copyright policy to learn more about 

our guidelines for reusing NIMH content at 

www.nimh.nih.gov/copyright.

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As we learn more about COVID-19 illness and recovery and the 

effectiveness of vaccination, public health experts are turning 

their attention from the general public to those most at risk 

from infection. One major risk factor is SMI. Researchers have 

documented that people with SMI are not only more likely to 

get COVID-19 compared to the general population, they are 

also more likely to suffer from severe COVID-19, require 

hospitalization, and die. NIMH is supporting research to 

address urgent mental health research questions related to 

COVID-19, including broader secondary impacts of the 

pandemic as well as research at the intersection of mental 

health, COVID-19, and HIV. Research focused on vulnerable 

populations, including those who experienced disparities in 

health outcomes prior to the pandemic and report increased 

mental health symptoms and illness during the pandemic, will 

be of great importance.

Effective treatments for mental illnesses exist, yet 

tailoring treatment for individuals is often a trial-and-error 

process that can lead to unacceptable delays in receiving 

effective treatment. To address this pressing challenge, 

NIMH is launching the Precision Psychiatry Initiative, an 

ambitious research program that will address two parallel 

areas of need: biomarker development and precision 

diagnostics. The goal of the biomarker development 

effort is to deliver highly sensitive and specific biomarkers 

to guide treatment decisions for major depression. 

Meanwhile, the precision diagnostics effort will support 

studies that follow large (100,000+), diverse cohorts of 

individuals over time using novel behavioral and 

physiological methods to better predict patient prognosis 

and optimize treatment.

The NIMH Office for Disparities 

Research and Workforce Diversity 

has developed a Strategic 

Framework to guide research to 

address and reduce mental health 

disparities among underserved and 

underrepresented youth by 2031. 

The Framework encompasses 

three Components: addressing 

knowledge gaps and expanding 

research opportunities; extending 

and supporting stakeholder engagement; and, growing the 

youth mental health disparities research workforce. 

Through 2031, NIMH may periodically update the 

Framework based on stakeholder feedback, emerging 

challenges and opportunities, and research advances.

Protecting youth mental health Precision Psychiatry Initiative 

COVID-19 risks for people with serious mental illness (SMI)