NIH RePORTER Scraper

Extract research projects, publications, and clinical studies from the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORTER) — the official database of federally-funded biomedical research in the United States.

Whether you are tracking funded cancer research, finding principal investigators at specific institutions, or monitoring NIH grant activity by agency, this actor gives you structured, export-ready data from NIH's public API.

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What You Can Scrape

• Research Projects — Full grant details including award amounts, PI names, organization, fiscal year, activity code, and project abstracts.
• Publications — NIH-linked PubMed publications with PMIDs and associated grant numbers.
• Clinical Studies — NIH-tracked clinical research studies.

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Key Features

• Search by keyword across project titles and abstracts
• Filter by NIH Institute or Center (NCI, NHLBI, NIAID, NIMH, and 14 more)
• Filter by grant activity code (R01, R21, T32, K-awards, F-awards, and more)
• Filter by fiscal year (single or multiple years)
• Configure how many records to retrieve (up to 10,000)
• All three modes: research projects, publications, clinical studies
• Direct links to NIH RePORTER and PubMed for every record
• No authentication or API key required

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Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
mode	Select	What to search: searchProjects, searchPublications, searchClinicalStudies	searchProjects
searchText	Text	Keywords to search in titles, abstracts, and terms	cancer immunotherapy
fiscalYears	List	Fiscal years to filter by, e.g. [2022, 2023]. Leave empty for all years.	[]
agencyIcAdmin	Select	NIH Institute or Center abbreviation (e.g. NCI, NIMH, NIAID)	Any
activityCode	Select	NIH grant activity code (e.g. R01, R21, T32)	Any
maxItems	Integer	Maximum records to return (1–10,000)	50

Supported Institutes & Centers

NCI · NHLBI · NIAID · NIMH · NIDDK · NICHD · NIA · NINDS · NIGMS · NEI · NIDCR · NIAAA · NIDA · NIMHD · NHGRI · NIBIB · NCATS

Supported Activity Codes

R01 · R03 · R21 · R15 · U01 · P01 · P30 · P50 · T32 · K01 · K08 · K23 · K24 · F31 · F32

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Output Fields

Research Projects (searchProjects)

Field	Type	Description
applId	String	NIH application ID
coreProjectNum	String	Core project number (e.g. R01CA123456)
projectTitle	String	Full project title
abstractText	String	Project abstract
fiscalYear	Integer	Fiscal year of the award
awardAmount	Integer	Total award amount in USD
directCostAmt	Integer	Direct cost amount in USD
indirectCostAmt	Integer	Indirect cost amount in USD
activityCode	String	Grant activity code (e.g. R01)
organizationName	String	Awardee institution name
organizationCity	String	City of the institution
organizationState	String	State code (e.g. MD)
organizationCountry	String	Country of the institution
piNames	Array	List of principal investigator full names
piEmails	Array	PI email addresses (when available)
contactPiName	String	Name of the contact PI
agencyIcAdmin	String	NIH Institute or Center code
terms	Array	Keywords/terms extracted from the project
projectStartDate	String	Project start date (ISO format)
projectEndDate	String	Project end date (ISO format)
sourceUrl	String	Direct link to NIH RePORTER project page
recordType	String	Always project
scrapedAt	String	ISO timestamp when the record was scraped

Publications (searchPublications)

Field	Type	Description
pmid	String	PubMed ID
applId	String	Associated NIH application ID
coreProjectNum	String	Associated grant number
sourceUrl	String	Direct link to the PubMed article
recordType	String	Always publication
scrapedAt	String	ISO timestamp

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Example Use Cases

1. Competitive intelligence — Find all R01 grants awarded by NCI in 2023 on immunotherapy topics.
2. Literature review — Retrieve PubMed IDs for publications linked to NIH grants on a specific topic.
3. Grant landscape analysis — Identify top-funded institutions and PIs in a research area.
4. Policy research — Track NIH funding trends across fiscal years and institutes.
5. Academic prospecting — Find active researchers and their contact information for collaboration.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need an API key or account? No. NIH RePORTER is a public API and does not require authentication.

How many records can I retrieve? Up to 10,000 records per run using the maxItems parameter.

Can I filter by multiple fiscal years at once? Yes. Set fiscalYears to a list like [2021, 2022, 2023].

What is an activity code? Activity codes classify grant mechanisms. For example, R01 is the standard research project grant, T32 is an institutional training grant, and K01 is a career development award.

What does the agencyIcAdmin filter do? It limits results to grants administered by a specific NIH Institute or Center. For example, setting it to NCI returns only National Cancer Institute grants.

Are award amounts always available? Award amounts are included when reported by NIH. Some records may not include cost data.

Can I get the full abstract text? Yes. The abstractText field contains the complete project abstract for each research project.

What is the coreProjectNum field? It is the permanent project identifier (e.g. R01CA123456) that groups all annual supplements and renewals of the same project together.

How current is the data? The NIH RePORTER API is updated regularly by NIH. The scrapedAt timestamp shows when each record was retrieved.

Is this actor rate-limited? The actor includes automatic retry logic with exponential backoff to handle rate limits gracefully.