National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
The lead U.S. federal agency for mental health research, and the world's largest funder of research on mental disorders.
NIMH – AboutThe National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders in the United States. Established in 1949 following the National Mental Health Act signed by President Truman in 1946, NIMH is one of 27 Institutes and Centers within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), itself part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
NIMH's mission is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, with a vision of a world in which mental illnesses are prevented and cured. Its four strategic goals encompass understanding brain mechanisms, examining mental illness trajectories, striving for prevention and cures, and strengthening public health impact.
At scale, NIMH is the largest funder of mental health research in the world, with a FY 2024 budget request of $2.5 billion. It supports more than 3,000 research grants and contracts annually at universities, academic health centers, and research institutions globally, and its Intramural Research Program supports approximately 600 scientists, primarily based on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
As the world's foremost mental health research funder and driver of scientific innovation in psychiatry and neuroscience, NIMH is highly relevant to any innovation seeking to advance the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of mental disorders.