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2007 NOVEMBER–DECEMBER; 359
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November 29, 2007 [posted]

More Changes to Grant Number Information

this article discusses additions and recent maintenance to the data provided in the Grant Number (GR) field in MEDLINE® /PubMed® records:

  1. "United States" to precede the names of U.S. granting organizations
  2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute to be identified as a granting organization

"United States" to Precede the Names of US Granting Organizations

In August 2007 when the National Library of Medicine® (NLM® ) began adding data for seven new United Kingdom granting agencies in MEDLINE/PubMed records, the data included "United Kingdom" in front of the name of the granting agency to indicate the home country of the funding source. This fall NLM will begin to add "United States" to all the US granting agency names. When the new 2008 PubMed system becomes available in early December records will carry this additional information.

PubMed Display

The format for a Public Health Service (PHS) grant number will be:

Grant number/Grant 2-letter code/United States Name of Granting Agency

The insertion of the phrase "United States" in front of the agency name is new.

This example shows how Grant Support will display in the Citation format:

Grant Support:
  • 1K02-OH07608-01/OH/United States NIOSH
  • 2P30 ES 00002/ES/United States NIEHS
  • HL61302/HL/United States NHLBI

Searching Grant Numbers

You may search on the organization names with or without United States, e.g.:

united states nhlbi [gr]
nhlbi [gr]

To find a specific grant number from a particular National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding agency and to be reminded of constraints related to the grant number data, see the search hints previously published.

Searchers may wish to isolate the citations having grant numbers from all United States granting organizations, i.e.:

united states [gr]

This search will retrieve all PHS granting agencies, and in the future, will also retrieve the Howard Hughes Medical Institute granting organization which is discussed later in this article.

Please be advised that this search does not represent all US Government-supported research, but only those citations created since 1981 that have a grant number awarded by a Public Health Service agency in the record. You may want to incorporate the various Research Support publication types, as appropriate to your search, especially as they indicate research funding for citations not having grant numbers:

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural

These Publication Type values are assigned whether or not an actual grant number is present in the published paper.

In the future, if NLM includes grant number data from funding agencies in other countries, NLM will export the source country in front of the granting agency for those records as well.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute to be Identified as a New Granting Organization

NLM will begin to carry Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a new granting organization in the Grant Number (GR) field. In the near future, when a manuscript deposited in PubMed Central has funding support from Howard Hughes Medical Institute that organization will be added to the journal citation that appears in PubMed. Eventually, Howard Hughes Medical Institute will be a funding organization that is identified as a regular part of the NLM data creation and indexing work flow.

The typical data available for Howard Hughes Medical Institute is the name only; grant numbers are not generally part of the information.

PubMed Display

We expect this new information to look like this in the Citation display:

Grant Support:
  • United States Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Note that the name is spelled out in full for this organization, similar to the way the United Kingdom organizations are done.

Searching Details

Search for this new funding source using either the full phrase or pieces of the name, e.g.:

united states howard hughes medical institute [gr]
howard hughes medical institute [gr]
howard hughes [gr]

Please be aware that once this new funding organization appears in the MEDLINE/PubMed records, then the search below will retrieve all the United States Public Health Service agencies with grant numbers as well as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

united states [gr]

Records containing Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the Grant field will also have Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't as a publication type.

Grant Number Information Web Page Updated

The Grant Number Information Found in the GR Field in MEDLINE/PubMed Web page has been updated for new two-letter grant codes and their associated organization abbreviations. This page also includes the following five changes:

Old Abbreviation (Old Full Name) New Abbreviation (New Full Name)
AHCPR
(Agency for Health Care Policy and Research)
AHRQ
(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
DCRT
(Division of Computer Research and Technology, NIH)
CIT
(Center for Information Technology, NIH)
NCMHHD
(National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, NIH)
NCMHD
(Same as Old Full Name.)
CID
(Center for Infectious Diseases, CDC)
NCPDCID
(National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases, CDC)
NCHSTP
(National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, CDC)
NCHHSTP
(National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs and Tuberculosis Prevention, CDC)


By Sara Tybaert
MEDLARS Management Section
and
Lou Wave S. Knecht
Bibliographic Services Division

Tybaert S, Knecht LS. More Changes to Grant Number Information. NLM Tech Bull. 2007 Nov-Dec; (359):e9.

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