Genomics Research: World Survey of Public Funding

Background Over the past two decades, genomics has evolved as a scientific research discipline. Genomics research was fueled initially by government and nonprofit funding sources, later augmented by private research and development (R&D) funding. Citizens and taxpayers of many countries have funded much of the research, and have expectations about access to the resulting information and knowledge. While access to knowledge gained from all publicly funded research is desired, access is especially important for fields that have broad social impact and stimulate public dialogue. Genomics is one such field, where public concerns are raised for reasons such as health care and insurance implications, as well as personal and ancestral identification. Thus, genomics has grown rapidly as a field, and attracts considerable interest. Results One way to study the growth of a field of research is to examine its funding. This study focuses on public funding of genomics research, identifying and collecting data from major government and nonprofit organizations around the world, and updating previous estimates of world genomics research funding, including information about geographical origins. We initially identified 89 publicly funded organizations; we requested information about each organization's funding of genomics research. Of these organizations, 48 responded and 34 reported genomics research expenditures (of those that responded but did not supply information, some did not fund such research, others could not quantify it). The figures reported here include all the largest funders and we estimate that we have accounted for most of the genomics research funding from government and nonprofit sources. Conclusion Aggregate spending on genomics research from 34 funding sources averaged around $2.9 billion in 2003 – 2006. The United States spent more than any other country on genomics research, corresponding to 35% of the overall worldwide public funding (compared to 49% US share of public health research funding for all purposes). When adjusted to genomics funding intensity, however, the United States dropped below Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Canada, as measured both by genomics research expenditure per capita and per Gross Domestic Product.


Results:
One way to study the growth of a field of research is to examine its funding. This study focuses on public funding of genomics research, identifying and collecting data from major government and nonprofit organizations around the world, and updating previous estimates of world genomics research funding, including information about geographical origins. We initially identified 89 publicly funded organizations; we requested information about each organization's funding of genomics research. Of these organizations, 48 responded and 34 reported genomics research expenditures (of those that responded but did not supply information, some did not fund such research, others could not quantify it). The figures reported here include all the largest funders and we estimate that we have accounted for most of the genomics research funding from government and nonprofit sources.
Conclusion: Aggregate spending on genomics research from 34 funding sources averaged around $2.9 billion in 2003 -2006. The United States spent more than any other country on genomics research, corresponding to 35% of the overall worldwide public funding (compared to 49% US share of public health research funding for all purposes). When adjusted to genomics funding intensity, however, the United States dropped below Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Canada, as measured both by genomics research expenditure per capita and per Gross Domestic Product.

Background
Genomics research, as a field of study, is largely a creature of the past two decades and is generally defined as the study of whole genomes. The term genomics came into common use in 1987 to distinguish "high throughput" data-and technology-intensive approaches to studying DNA structure and function from the more established approach of studying DNA structure and function of indi-vidual genes. The history of genomics research is embedded in the Human Genome Project and its parallel private sector components. In 2003, with the completion of a high-quality sequence of the human genome, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that "the genomic era is now a reality" [1]. Genomics has become central to biomedical and disease-based research; genomic technologies are being used to identify genetic factors involved in nine of the ten leading causes of death in the United States (excluding accidents; [2,3]).
As the social and personal implications of genomics research have become apparent (its power to identify an individual uniquely, to influence the health care decisions of some, and to inform the study of genealogy and ancestry of individuals and populations), the public has become increasingly interested in understanding genomics. Genomics is being used in many populations for purposes such as large genome-wide population studies, personalized genomics, and genomic ancestry tests. Genomics has become an issue of interest to the general public, and an element of current culture, as evidenced by several articles in the popular press [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. As genomics is incorporated into health care [12], law enforcement [13], ancestry tracing [14], and other activities, feelings of hope and fear surrounding individual genomic sequencing have emerged [15] and public funding allocated to genomics research has increased [evidenced by the establishment of the NIH Center for Human Genome Research, which later became the National Human Genome Research Institute; [16]].
Most countries provide public funding for scientific research, under some variation of a mission to promote or improve the nation's health. Many countries are investing in genomics as an element of biotechnology, and as a pathway to economic development. The rise of genomics funding results from the priority that governments have placed on such research, which is influenced by policy decisions. One of the foremost issues in genome research policy is allocation of funds and research prioritization [17]. Research prioritization is determined by stakeholders with varying perspectives; therefore each country, and in fact each organization, is likely to arrive at a different set of priorities, and subsequent allocation of resources.
The individuals who determine research priorities and subsequent allocation of funds for each organization are accountable to the donors who provided funding support; in the public sector, most research funding is derived from taxpayer support. Research funding in the United States is distributed by Congress, whose Members are accountable to citizens and constituents. As "genomics is beginning to bring understanding that everyone is at risk for something based on their genes" [18], public interest in genomics research increases. Both those advocating for health research funding to address diseases or health conditions, and policy-makers who determine government resource allocations can use information about funding levels to inform advocacy positions and governmental funding decisions.
To facilitate its input, the public needs access to data, benchmarks, and indicators of current research funding, past funding trends, future projections, and comparisons with funding organizations around the world. Several organizations study and publish such data and benchmarks for general R&D funding or health funding, including the R&D Budget and Policy Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) [19], the Division of Science Resources Statistics at the National Science Foundation (NSF) [20] and its National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators [21], the Statistics Portal of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) [22] and the Global Forum on Health Research [23]. While the authors of "Monitoring Financial Flows in Health Research" characterize their estimates as "very rough," they remain the best statistics available on global heath research [24]. Occasional studies have included reporting on genomics research, including the 2004 "Financial Flows" report [see Highlight 2.1 (page 27) in [25]], which cited a previous survey (in 2000) that our current survey builds upon. There has been no update specific to genomics since 2000 [26], however, so we undertook this "world survey" to update and expand that survey. We report the allocation of public funds that countries and organizations in the public sector (governments, nonprofit organizations, and international organizations) provide for genomics research. This survey of public sector funding provides patterns and trends of worldwide genomics funding, allowing for initial comparisons across organizations and countries, and complements an effort to estimate genomics expenditures by private companies [27].
In our survey, we simply asked each organization to provide a quantitative estimate of the amount of genomics research they funded each year; we did not supply a definition of genomics research (because a universally agreedupon definition does not exist). To facilitate participation of as many organizations as possible, we encouraged organizations to use their own definitions of genomics, so that funding data could be easily extracted from budget information. Some funding organizations did not have a standard definition of genomics research or requested a specific definition. In those cases, we replied that genomics research is defined by research on the entire genome of an organism instead of research on individual genes and gene functions [See Discussion and Chandrasekharan et. al [27] for a more complete definition and taxonomy]. Organizations that were unable to provide estimates for genomics research were not included in the study. This survey does not cover all the organizations or all the countries that publicly fund genomics research. As for any funding table, there is definitional wobble and incomplete reporting. For reasons elaborated below, however, we believe most of the major sources of public funding have been identified and that the funding figures provided here can inform researchers and policymakers on the state of genomics research, at least as rough indicators and for information about trends.

Results
For this world survey of genomics research, we identified 89 different organizations, representing 26 countries and 7 international organizations (covering multi-country regions; see Additional File). An initial response was received from about half (42; or 48 if counting those that we did not contact but about which we received information), with most of those (34) supplying the results shown in Table 1. The 14 organizations that responded to our request but did not provide information cited reasons such as the information not being available in the format requested (i.e. they were unable to estimate funding allocated to genomics research) or that genomics was not a part of their research portfolio.
An estimate for worldwide genomics funding from the responding organizations averages around US$2.9 billion for 2003 -2006 (Table 1). Although the table is incomplete for 2006 due to unavailability of funding amounts for South Africa's National Research Foundation and China, their combined total averaged less than three percent of worldwide government and nonprofit genomics research in 2003 -2005. When beginning this survey, we noted that the United States NIH publicly reported an estimate of funding for the research area of genetics [28]. To find out more about this reporting practice, we requested and received the breakdown of genetics research funding by NIH component ( , and since its mission "encompasses a broad range of studies aimed at understanding the structure and function of the human genome and its role in health and disease" [30], this amount appears to be the figure that NHGRI reports as genomics research, reflected in Table 3 We grouped the organizations by country (Table 4) into three tiers based on the amount of genomics research funded. The five countries or regions that funded more than US$100 million in genomics research in each of the four years surveyed are the United States, Other Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan. The next tier includes China, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Ireland, which reported between US$35 -80 million in genomics research funding each year (with the exception of 2004 for the Netherlands, which was lower than the other years because expenditures were "declared (much) later" [31]). Finally, Spain, Australia, and South Africa reported less than US$14 million each year.
To examine the priority each country places on genomics research, as a measure of "genomics intensity," we nor-     (Table 6).

Discussion
This survey does not cover all the organizations or countries that publicly fund genomics research. To estimate how well the values reported in this survey correspond to the actual public funding of genomics research in each country, we determined, where possible, the research funders for each country that were not included in this survey (see Additional File 1).     (Table 4, Table 5 and Figure 2), while funding per GDP steadily decreased (Table 6 and Figure 3).

Analysis by Country/Region
Over half of the United States contribution was provided by the NIH. As described above, we made considerable effort to determine the amount of genomics research funding by each Institute and Center, but we were only able to quantitate NCI and NHGRI directly. In these two cases, the amount of genomics research compared to genetics research was just under 10% (NCI) and 100% (NHGRI). Actual kinds of research undoubtedly differ between NCI and NHGRI, but a significant portion of the difference is likely attributable to different definitions and reporting practices for "genomics" as a category. If other Institutes and Centers fund genomics in proportion to genetics research similar to the NCI proportion, the additional genomics expenditure (for the Institutes and Centers that reported Genetics funding) would total $215 -250 million in  and genomics research [32]. Thus, the actual amount of genetics research is likely to be higher than that reported by NIH, and the additional amount of genomics research could be much more than $215 -250 million.  [39], and through the United States Army with the Congres-   [46]. Although we were unable to determine the percentage of total research and development funds provided by the nonprofits listed in our survey, the overall contribution of nonprofits towards total research and development funding in the US was 3% in 2004 [47]. Combined, these two data indicate that there are unlikely to be major public funders in the United States that are not addressed in this survey, and that the survey accounts for a large majority of total genomics government and nonprofit expenditures in the United States. The remaining public funds for genomics research are likely to be attributable to the government and nonprofit funders identified in this survey that did not supply data, such as the four NIH Institutes and Centers named above, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Center, National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Oceanic and Atmostpheric Administration (NOAA), the J.    Table 5, is depicted graphically.

Percent of Worldwide Genomics Research Publicly Funded by Country/Region in 2006
tion), but we received no response from any of these except for the Academy of Finland and Centre National de la Recherche Scientique (see Additional File 1), both of which provided an initial response before communication ceased. We also contacted several international organizations active in Europe (European Space Agency, NordForsk, and the Human Frontier Science Program), but were unsuccessful in gathering funding data.

United Kingdom
Spending on genomics research in the United Kingdom decreased slightly in 2006, after a steady increase from 2003 to 2005 (Table 4). The United Kingdom was the second highest funder of genomics research per capita and per GDP (Tables 5 and 6); both measures of genomics "intensity" declined in 2006 (Figures 2 and 3) genomics. An analysis of the annual reports of the BBSRC shows that 35 -40% of the total research funded (through responsive research grants, core strategic grants, and research initiatives) was genomics [50,51]. Similarly, the Wellcome Trust reported spending 29 -38% of its grant expenditures on genomics research [52,53]. Finally, the genomics research funded by Cancer Research UK was estimated at 10% of its charitable expenses (Personal Communication, Lynne Davies, January 2007).

Canada
Canada supplied about 6% of total genomics research funding in 2006 (Figure 1), which increased significantly from a relatively constant contribution in 2003 -2005 (Table 4). Likewise, the genomics intensity measures (genomics funding per capita and per GDP) increased in 2006 (Tables 5 and 6). Its public funding on genomics research is likely to continue increasing, since it recently began a new initiative, the Public Population Project in Genomics [54].  Table 6, is depicted graphically.  (Table 4 and Figure 1). Although its ranking dropped from fourth (Table 4) to sixth or seventh when adjusted for intensity (Tables 5 and 6), genomics research is increasing by all measures, indicating that may be poised to overtake some countries in the coming years. In fact, the Second Science and Technology Basic Plan (2001 -2005) was intended to close the gap between Japan and the other G7 nations in the percentage of R&D funding provided by government. The Third Science and Technology Basic Plan, which began in 2006, has a goal to increase overall government funding of R&D until the Science and Technology investment equals 1% of Japan's GDP [56].  (Figure 1). Since our source, a senior official at a publicly funded organization who was not authorized to speak on such issues, preferred to remain anonymous, we made numerous attempts to contact multiple individuals at the above organizations and the United States NSF-Beijing for attributable data; unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in gathering the data via those means.

South Korea
In South Korea, which accounted for 2% of total genomics research funding in 2006 (Figure 1), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) is the central agency for national science and technology development, including support for basic and applied research and development supported by the government [65], making it likely that the values reported here represent nearly all of the country's genomic research funding. Although South Korea's funding for genomics research has been increasing steadily since 2004, the incoming president has pledged to eliminate four government ministries, possibly merging the MOST with the Ministry of Education, which may weaken it [66].

Ireland
According to the Office of Science and Technology of the Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment, three government agencies are responsible for most of the genomics funding in Ireland (Personal Communication, Helen Dixon, August 2006). These three agencies -the Higher Education Authority, the Science Foundation, and the Health Research Board -are included in this survey. The Irish government has recently increased its investment in R&D with the goal of meeting or exceeding the average R&D investment of European Union countries [67]. Indeed, Ireland appears to place a high priority on genomics research since its rank increases dramatically from ninth ( , and could serve to increase the amount of funding supplied for genomics research, as it currently accounts for less than 1% of the total funding ( Figure 1).

Caveats
There are two major caveats to consider when interpreting the figures reported in this world survey. First, many organizations and countries are not included in this study, either because we did not know to contact them or because they did not respond. Thus, the full amount of genomics research funded by public sources is certainly higher than the estimates reported in this study.
Second, the values provided by each organization are estimates, according to each organization's own definition of genomics research, which is not uniform across all organizations. For example, organizations might have included some genetics research in their genomics research estimates. Consider the NHGRI and the CDC definition of genomics as "the study of all of [a person's genes]" including "interactions of those genes with each other and the person's environment" [2,79]). Interestingly, another US government agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, although not queried in this world survey, provides a definition of genomics, "the study of genes and their function" [80], that is almost exactly the definition provided for genetics by the NHGRI [79] and in the literature [ [17,27] and references therein]. We note, however, that we only included values from organizations that were able to respond to our query for genomics research; organizations stating that they were not able to extract information from their funding databases for genomics research were not included.

Conclusion
Although this survey is an estimate of funding for genomics research, and necessarily fuzzy and approximate, it represents the only attempt to perform such a survey to our knowledge, and therefore provides patterns and trends as a rough indicator for planning among researchers, science administrators, policymakers, and the general public.
This world survey would not have been possible had we tried to gather funding information for genomics research according to a strict and consistent definition. If governments and private funders believe that genomics as a funding category is permanent and worth retaining as a separate category for analysis, it will need a more uniform definition. This is particularly relevant for the NIH, the world's largest biomedical research funder, which, except for two constituent institutes, (the NHGRI and the NCI) does not track funding of genomics research. And these two Institutes report widely different figures for genomics as a fraction of genetics research, reflecting some real differences but probably also reflecting different definitions of genomics research. Furthermore, the closest research category that the NIH does track, genetics, is not defined centrally.
The NIH is in the process of developing a "portfolio analysis" web-accessible tool that will allow the public to access information about NIH projects by research area, the definitions of which will be "laboriously crafted with input from hundreds of scientists" [81]. The effort that is being expended to create this tool indicates the importance that the NIH places upon appropriately categorizing public expenditures by research area. If genetics, genomics, or both are deemed important categories in which to monitor science trends and for budget planning, then it would be worthwhile to invest in a process to clarify definitions, and the NIH's definition might well become a world standard.
The NCI, a component of the NIH, provided a definition of genomics: "the identification, characterization and quantification of all genes involved in a particular pathway, organelle, cell, tissue, organ or organism that can be studied in concert to provide accurate and comprehensive data about that system" (Personal Communication, Weston Ricks, June 2006). This is a detailed definition that encompasses and expands upon the definition of genomics already in use by the NHGRI and the CDC (see above).
If the NIH includes genomics as a research area in its new portfolio analysis tool, the NCI definition could serve as a starting point for the development of a trans-NIH definition of genomics research.
Genomics research has become incorporated into scientific and medical research, and is beginning to be applied in medicine and commerce. Genomics captures the attention of the general public because of its technological power to study the structure and function of DNA, with the consequent potential to reveal intimate details about individuals, populations, and associations between genotype and phenotype.
The amount of funding provided for genomics research is of interest to both scientific and lay communities worldwide. This world survey indicates that overall public funding for genomics research, as a minimum estimate, averaged around US$2.9 billion annually (2003 -2006). Government and nonprofit funding of genomics research is likely to comprise between one-third and one-half of the total funding (where the remainder is for-profit private funding), based on the worldwide distribution of funding for health research (where government and nonprofit funding for health research account for 45% and 7% of worldwide funding for health research, respectively [82], and based on separate surveys of private genomics R&D in 2000 [26] and [27]).

Methods
This survey was conducted by email and telephone. Government and nonprofit contacts were assembled by contacting known genome research administrators and scientists, adding contacts from public information and genome websites, and building on the previous world survey of genomics research begun in 2000 [26].
Generally, contacts were emailed the survey question, which asked respondents to identify the total amount of funding that their organizations supplied for genomics research each year (2003 -2006), with the understanding that estimates were acceptable. In some cases, initial contact was by phone. Follow-up email correspondence often occurred, with the most effort being expended on procuring figures from the largest public funders. In a few cases, such as China, we were able to obtain funding informa-tion only from intermediaries familiar with science budgets because of their role in national planning and as performers of genomics research.
Data were requested by fiscal year and are reported in the tables for the calendar year that encompassed most of that fiscal year. Specifically, the calendar year at the beginning of the fiscal year was used when the fiscal year began on April 1, while the calendar year at the end of the fiscal year was used when the fiscal year began on October 1. When funding amounts were supplied in a currency other than US$, they were converted to US$, using the purchasing power parity (PPP) indices provided by the OECD [83], except for South Africa, where implied PPP indices were calculated from International Monetary Fund (IMF) data [84].
To determine per capita genomics funding, the amount of funding per country (in US$) was divided by the estimated population in the middle of the year, as provided by OECD for 2003-2005 [85]. The population data for 2006 were gathered from the Population Reference Bureau 2006 Data Sheet for all countries [86]. To determine genomics funding per GDP, the amount of funding per country (in US$) was divided by the GDP (in US$) for each year, provided by the IMF [84].
Rankings listed in the tables were determined by ordering 2006 values, except in the two instances where the 2006 data were not reported. In those cases, an average of the three previous years determined the ranking order for 2006.