Duke University School of Medicine received more than $514 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2025, ranking 9th nationally among medical schools, according to new data from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.
The investment accelerates Duke’s work to advance medical science, improve patient care, and train future biomedical researchers. As the world’s largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research, the NIH provides crucial support that helps drive this work forward.
In the latest rankings, 11 Duke clinical and basic science departments placed among the top 10 in their fields, with orthopedics and surgery earning the No. 1 spot for funding in their fields.
“Scientific funding is increasingly competitive, and we’re proud that the NIH continues to partner with Duke, supporting our researchers as they work to advance discoveries that improve the nation’s health,” said Mary E. Klotman, MD, executive vice president of medical affairs at Duke University and dean of the School of Medicine.
She added that the year’s performance highlights the commitment of Duke faculty, trainees, and staff, “whose work has real and lasting impact for patients and communities everywhere.”
The Duke School of Medicine’s ranking is based on grants awarded during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2025.
This year’s Blue Ridge rankings reflect an unusual NIH funding cycle, with several multi-year awards issued late in the fiscal year. Because the full value of those multi-year grants is counted in the year they were awarded, the funding totals may appear higher than the actual annual level of research funding.
Still, the results reflect the broad research strength across the Duke School of Medicine.
Several departments, including anesthesiology (3), dermatology (3), obstetrics and gynecology (5), pediatrics (5), neurosurgery (6), internal medicine (8), pharmacology and cancer biology (8), and ophthalmology (10), ranked among the top 10.
Duke investigators continue to drive progress in areas ranging from understanding why some people age more resiliently than others, mapping the molecular drivers of heart disease – the nation’s leading cause of death – and probing the biology behind mental health disorders.
The grants also bolster Duke’s growing research footprint in precision medicine, data-driven health research, and other emerging scientific areas.
The BRIMR annual rankings are a common benchmark in academic medicine for tracking trends in biomedical research funding.