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Research Economics Public funding for research depends on the idea that the resulting knowledge translates into socially valuable outcomes, such as medicines. Such linkages are easier to assert than to prove. Li et al. studied 27 years of grant-level funding by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. About 10% of grants are directly cited by patents, suggesting some technological application, and 30% of grants are cited in research articles that are then cited in patents. Five percent of grants result in papers cited by patents for successfully approved drugs, compared with less than 1% that are cited directly by such patents. These patterns hold regardless of whether the research is more basic or applied. Science , this issue p. [78][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aal0010