NIH grants - how to acquire body text in addition to just abstracts?

Question

[Wayne]

Hey there,

I am looking for a way to download all of the NIH grants full body text to do analysis on. Right now I can get most of the abstracts but more data from the text bodies would be a lot better. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get some or all of the grants from previous years?

thanks so much !!

[andrew]

I'm not aware of any way to programatically get the body of the text you are looking for. I believe you need to request each grant you are interested in through a Freedom of Information Request Act (FOIRA). This happened to us once. Then the PI is usually sent a request where they need to respond within XX days. The PI can redact certain portions of the grant application that may be considered proprietary. This was done intentionally to prevent "public disclosures" that could invalidate certain inventions prior to filing patents. It also protects researchers from getting scooped if their grant is not funded.