Research
Fund Flows
All editions01 / Biomedical research13 source records ↓
Case edition 01 / September 12, 2026

Follow a grant.
Stop at the evidence.

Where does research money actually go? Two public-record cases show what a funding trail establishes—and what an institutional connection cannot.

Read the two cases Download full report
Research cutoff: · America/New_YorkHistorical cases · Original sources · No live monitoring
THIS EDITION FINDS
01

A funding bridge exists.

NIH → EcoHealth → WIV. The subaward is documented; its two reported totals differ.

 02

A partnership is not that bridge.

NIH → Duke is documented. These records do not link the selected award to Duke Kunshan.
01
NIH / ECOHEALTH / WIV

A documented path.
A visible stopping point.

Subaward established

Public records connect NIH/NIAID to EcoHealth Alliance, and EcoHealth to Wuhan Institute of Virology under R01AI110964. The public financial trail in this edition ends at the named subrecipient.

The research concerned bat-coronavirus emergence: field sampling, characterization, modeling and laboratory tests of cross-species transmission. NIH’s FY2014 record and USAspending identify the same EcoHealth recipient, with UEI TKS7NBB4JDN6. S01 S02

THE DOCUMENTED FINANCIAL PATHAmounts are different measures—not additive.
PUBLIC FUNDERNIH / NIAIDUnited States
Prime award$3,537,360.32Total obligation
2014–2024 performanceS02: receipt
DIRECT RECIPIENTEcoHealth
AllianceUnited States
Reported subawards$598,500Five action rows
2015–2019S03: receipt
SUBRECIPIENTWuhan Institute
of VirologyChina · institutional match*
Trail stops here. These records do not establish an exhaustive onward-recipient or ultimate-use ledger.
READ THE NUMBERS

Two sources. One unresolved difference.

USAspending$598,500Sum of five reported rows S03
HHS Inspector General$598,611Table 7 subaward amount S04

$111 remains unresolved. We preserve both amounts and their definitions. The checked sources do not explain the difference.

OIG’s table covers the June 1, 2014–May 31, 2019 federal project period. Its footnote selects subawards with expenditures in EcoHealth’s records as of July 2021. The column says “Subaward Amount”—not verified cash paid or total WIV expenditure. S04

The $666,442 NIH FY2014 budget-year award and $3,537,360.32 current prime obligation describe wider or different slices of funding. Neither is a WIV transfer total. OIG’s earlier prime snapshot is also retained in the amount ledger. S01 S02 S04

The five WIV-labelled rows

CSV
USAspending reported subaward actions; dates are not verified payment dates.
Action dateAmount (USD)
29 May 2015$133,000
31 May 2016$133,000
31 May 2017$133,000
31 May 2018$133,000
31 May 2019$66,500
Five-row total$598,500

Subaward number 1R01AI110964-01. All row IDs and unshortened recipient labels are in the download. S03

There are two other reported rows. They are not WIV—or DKU.

Wuhan University School of Public Health has two rows: $41,875 on May 31, 2016 and $159,342.10 on May 31, 2017. Together they total $201,217.10. All seven rows total $799,717.10, consistent with the prime record’s subaward aggregate. OIG Table 7 gives $201,221 for this unit, a separate unresolved $3.90 difference. S03 S04

Wuhan University’s role in Duke Kunshan does not turn these School of Public Health rows into DKU funding. That would require another documented financial bridge.

02
NIH / DUKE / KUNSHAN

Two real facts.
No established transfer.

Nonfinancial control case

Duke received the selected NIH award. Duke also helped establish Duke Kunshan University. One fact does not financially connect the other.

NIH’s FY2024 award 5R01HL155293-04 is for virtual imaging research to improve CT quantification of COPD. The recipient is Duke University, UEI TP7EK8DZV6N5. S08

DOCUMENTED AWARD
PUBLIC FUNDERNIH / NHLBI
$428,828FY2024 award-year amount
DIRECT RECIPIENTDuke University

Budget: July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025. S08

No award-specific DKU transfer established.

Exact matched-award query: no first-tier subaward rows returned. This is not a zero-dollar measurement. S09 S10

SEPARATE INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONSHIP
INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERDuke University
Founding partnershipDocumented by September 2013
JOINT-VENTURE UNIVERSITYDuke Kunshan University

Duke and Wuhan University partnership, with investment from Kunshan city. The institutional sources give no amount tied to this NIH grant. S11 S12

A November 2013 board record documents governance, not a transfer from this later award. S13

THE CONTROL TEST

“Not found” must never become “$0 to China.”

The exact Duke USAspending award returned results: [] with hasNext: false. This limited check does not cover every Duke grant, vendor purchase or nonpublic agreement. An award-linked subagreement, budget or expenditure record would be needed to establish the missing bridge.

Why the Duke award amounts and project-end dates also stay separate

USAspending’s matching FAIN R01HL155293 reports $2,198,800 in total obligations, performance July 1, 2021–June 30, 2027, last modified May 21, 2026. The NIH FY2024 record gives overall project end June 30, 2026. We retain those source-specific periods rather than forcing a single date. The $428,828 budget-year amount is not the full-project aggregate, and neither is a DKU transfer. S08 S09

RELATIONSHIPS NEED THEIR OWN EVIDENCE

Six different questions.
Not one “connection” label.

Funding, affiliation and governance cannot be substituted for one another. Dates matter; so does relevance to the particular award.

01 / FINANCIAL

Funding

The WIV path has reported subawards and an independent audit-table bridge. Duke has a prime award but no DKU bridge in the checked records.

Historical award periods; rechecked 12 Sep 2026. S03 S04 S10

02 / LEGAL STRUCTURE

Ownership

No corporate shareholding percentage is established here. A CAS institute and a university joint venture are not enough to invent one.

Institutional sources, not ownership instruments. S05 S07 S12

03 / STATE INSTITUTION

PRC affiliation

WIV’s 2018 record identifies its CAS relationship. A 2013 State Council notice lists CAS as a directly subordinate public institution.

Recipient context, not another grant transfer. S05 S07

04 / MILITARY

PLA relationships

No PLA funding, control or collaboration edge is established by this edition. It is not a comprehensive military-relationship investigation or a finding of absence.

No award-linked military conclusion. See boundary G04.

05 / PARTY GOVERNANCE

CCP governance

WIV’s January 2018 report documents its Party committee’s 2017 institutional work. A November 2018 notice records CAS Party-group leadership appointments.

Neither source establishes direction of this grant. S05 S06

06 / INSTITUTIONAL

Collaboration

Duke–DKU partnership and historical board representation are documented. They do not establish a transfer from either selected NIH award.

2013 originals; current Duke page observed at cutoff. S11 S12 S13

Institutional context is not a verdict.

This edition does not infer wrongdoing, hidden direction or the origin of COVID-19. It uses OIG’s financial tables; the full report separately contains oversight findings, NIH/EcoHealth comments and OIG responses. S04

HOW TO READ THIS EDITION

Every link has a limit.

These two cases test an evidence method. They do not estimate how much global research funding reaches any country.

  1. Match the identity.Join the federal award number and recipient UEI. Preserve raw foreign labels.
  2. Name the measure.Keep budget-year amounts, obligations, subawards and spending separate.
  3. Read the receipt.Check the original table, date, footnote and institution—not just the number.
  4. Stop where it stops.No funding arrow from a partnership alone. No absence claim from a missing row.
THE SOURCE DESK

Open the record.

13 relied-on primary sources, rechecked September 12, 2026.
Each entry includes its date, exact locator and evidentiary limit.

S01NIH RePORTER: R01AI110964 award-year recordsSnapshot / undated

NIH RePORTER

Supports: NIH/NIAID award to EcoHealth; FY2014 amount, budget period, applicant-described purpose and recipient identifiers.

Locator: results[]: appl_id 8674931; project_num, fiscal_year, award_amount, budget_start/end, organization.org_ueis and org_duns, abstract_text. All seven returned years are preserved in nih-award-years.csv.

Limit: Living database retrieved at cutoff. Use the FY2014 abstract for this historical case; later renewal abstracts are different.

Recorded API request: {"criteria":{"project_nums":["R01AI110964"]},"offset":0,"limit":20}

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

POST · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:18.652488+00:00

S02USAspending: EcoHealth prime award2025-04-21

U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending

Supports: FAIN R01AI110964, matching EcoHealth UEI, $3,537,360.32 obligation, performance dates and seven reported first-tier rows.

Locator: fain; id; recipient.recipient_name and recipient_uei; total_obligation; date_signed; period_of_performance; subaward_count.

Limit: Document date here is the response’s last_modified_date, not the research cutoff. Obligations are not cash paid or WIV expenditures.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:20.143349+00:00

S03USAspending: seven EcoHealth subaward rowsSnapshot / undated

U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending

Supports: Five WIV-labelled amounts sum to $598,500; two Wuhan University School of Public Health rows sum to $201,217.10.

Locator: POST /api/v2/subawards/ for award_id 270144311. WIV row IDs: 4275874, 4275875, 4308789, 4308790, 4308788. Wuhan University row IDs: 4296600, 4318113. page_metadata.hasNext=false.

Limit: Dates are reported action dates, not proven bank-transfer dates. The list response provides no Chinese registration identifier.

Recorded API request: {"award_id":270144311,"page":1,"limit":100,"sort":"amount","order":"desc"}

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

POST · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:20.563493+00:00

S04HHS OIG A-05-21-00025: award and subaward tables2023-01

HHS Office of Inspector General

Supports: WIV subaward amount $598,611 and Wuhan University amount $201,221 under R01AI110964; project period 2014-06-01 to 2019-05-31; historical prime award/expenditure snapshot.

Locator: Appendix E, Table 7: printed p.47 / PDF p.55, WIV and Wuhan University rows and asterisk footnote. Table 5: printed p.45 / PDF p.53. Table 6: printed p.46 / PDF p.54. Institutional comments: Appendices I–J, printed pp.52–64.

Limit: January 2023 report. Table 7 covers subawards with expenditures in EcoHealth records as of July 2021; its column is Subaward Amount, not a bank-payment total.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:21.006067+00:00

S05WIV announces a new leadership team (Chinese)2018-11-01

Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Supports: Contemporaneous WIV–CAS institutional identity and a CAS Party group appointment decision involving institute leadership and a Party committee office.

Locator: Article heading and first two body paragraphs; event held October 30, 2018. Chinese title: 武汉病毒所召开新一届领导班子任命宣布大会.

Limit: Analyst paraphrase/translation. The 2019 URL migration date is not the article date. No grant number or funding instruction is identified in this article.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:18:13.365345+00:00

S06WIV reviews its 2017 leadership work (Chinese)2018-01-31

Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Supports: A WIV Party committee and its institutional governance role are documented during the historical grant period.

Locator: First and second body paragraphs, event January 29, 2018; institute Party committee and report on its 2017 work. Chinese title: 武汉病毒所举行2017年领导班子与领导人员年度考核大会.

Limit: Analyst paraphrase/translation. This is not evidence that the committee directed R01AI110964 or received its funds.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:18:11.611218+00:00

S07State Council institutional-establishment notice, Guo Fa [2013] No.142013-03-19

PRC State Council; official reproduction by Ministry of Ecology and Environment

Supports: CAS was listed as a public institution directly under the State Council in this dated official structure.

Locator: Section VI (六、国务院直属事业单位), entry 中国科学院; signature date 2013-03-19. Page publication date 2013-04-03.

Limit: Translation of institutional category, not a corporate ownership percentage. The 2018 URL path is not the document date. Historical evidence; not asserted as the current full government structure.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:19:09.728182+00:00

S08NIH RePORTER: Duke FY2024 control awardSnapshot / undated

NIH RePORTER

Supports: NIH/NHLBI award to Duke for virtual CT imaging research; $428,828 award-year amount and 2024-07-01 to 2025-06-30 budget period.

Locator: results[0]: appl_id 10879148, project_num 5R01HL155293-04, fiscal_year 2024, award_amount, budget_start/end, project_start/end, organization.org_ueis, abstract_text.

Limit: Living database. This record’s project end differs from the broader USAspending record; neither implies a DKU transfer.

Recorded API request: {"criteria":{"appl_ids":[10879148]},"offset":0,"limit":1}

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

POST · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:20.061089+00:00

S09USAspending: Duke matched prime award2026-05-21

U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending

Supports: Duke UEI matches NIH; aggregate obligation $2,198,800 and performance dates 2021-07-01 to 2027-06-30; zero reported subaward count.

Locator: id 270232143; fain R01HL155293; recipient.recipient_uei; total_obligation; period_of_performance; subaward_count.

Limit: Document date is last_modified_date. Aggregate is not an FY2024 amount. Different period from the NIH award-year record is retained, not forced into agreement.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:20.658434+00:00

S10USAspending: Duke first-tier subaward querySnapshot / undated

U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending

Supports: This exact award query returned no first-tier rows at the retrieval time.

Locator: POST /api/v2/subawards/ for award_id 270232143; results=[]; page_metadata.hasNext=false.

Limit: A bounded not-found result, not a zero-dollar measurement or proof of no foreign funding.

Recorded API request: {"award_id":270232143,"page":1,"limit":100,"sort":"amount","order":"desc"}

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

POST · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:20.906147+00:00

S11Duke and Duke Kunshan UniversitySnapshot / undated

Duke Office of DKU Relations

Supports: Duke and Wuhan University partnership establishing DKU, with investment from the city of Kunshan; broader educational/research collaboration.

Locator: Opening description and paragraph beginning Formed through a partnership.

Limit: Undated institutional page observed at cutoff. It provides no R01HL155293 award link, transfer amount, or ownership percentage.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:24.161301+00:00

S12DKU Gets Final Approval, Begins Student Recruitment2013-09-16

Duke Today

Supports: Dated evidence of the Duke/Wuhan University joint venture and Chinese Ministry of Education approval in September 2013.

Locator: First paragraph and paragraphs on Kunshan’s campus construction and support.

Limit: Institution-level relationship and regulatory approval; not evidence of use of the selected 2024 NIH award.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:26.138773+00:00

S13DKU Board Meeting Held at Wuhan University2013-11-28

Duke Kunshan University

Supports: The inaugural DKU board approved Articles of Association and bylaws; its membership included Duke, Wuhan University and Kunshan-linked representatives.

Locator: First and second body paragraphs; November 11–12, 2013 board meeting and institutional affiliations of trustees.

Limit: Historical governance evidence only. This edition does not claim those individuals or board composition remain current.

Open original source ↗Request metadata and SHA-256: source register

GET · HTTP 200 · retrieved 2026-09-12T15:17:26.520169+00:00

Source access, translations and research limits

The former WIV English profile failed certificate validation; an older DKU welcome URL returned HTTP 503. We used dated, reachable WIV Chinese and Duke/DKU institutional originals instead. No security checks were disabled, and no failed access was treated as evidence against an institution.

Chinese terms are paraphrased: 事业单位 means public institution here; 党委, Party committee; 党组, Party group. Article dates, not later URL migration paths, date the claims. Exact retrieval times and request bodies are in the source register.

This is an analyst-reviewed edition. No external peer review or global coverage is claimed. The full report records the scope and edition history; the review notes document verification.

TAKE THE RECEIPTS WITH YOU

Readable. Reusable.
Open to inspection.

All dollars in USD. Alternate observations are not additive.

Print editionPDF · our report with expanded source notesFull case reportMarkdown · narrative and citationsRelationship recordsCSV · type, dates, sources, grant relevanceAmount ledgerCSV · source-specific measures and periodsSource registerJSON · requests, locators, retrievals and hashesData dictionaryMarkdown · how to interpret the records