The paper is to explore the funding pattern of the National Natural Science Foundation for Youth Science Fund in the field of ophthalmology in China.

On the website of NSFC funded project information sharing service (hereinafter referred to as NSFC sharing service network(http: //npd.nsfc.gov.cn), respectively, with the key words of project query code h1201 to h1211, project year and Youth Science Fund project, the project information of Ophthalmology project of NSFC from 2015 to 2019 was retrieved. The application code, project name, research start and end year, supporting unit name, funding amount, approval year and person in charge of the approved project item by item were recorded. The total number of approved projects and total funding, and the application codes, i. e. the percentage of research direction in the total number of approved projects, were described in the form of text, table, pie chart and column chart. Among them, each application code was the total number of projects approved by the research direction from 2015 to 2019 described in words and tables. Each application code was the total number of projects approved by the research direction each year and its proportion in the total number, which are described in the form of text and line chart. For the top three approved projects, the total number of approved projects in each year was described by linear graph. All supporting units shall be arranged in descending order according to the total number of approved projects from 2015 to 2019, and the total number of projects approved by the top 10 units and the name of supporting units shall be taken for description in a table.

From 2015 to 2019, there were 417 projects funded by NSFC in Ophthalmology, with a total of 81.5 million yuan. Among them, the funding amount in 2019 increased by 62.17% compared with that in 2015; the h1205 projects involving retinal, choroidal and vitreous diseases received the most funding, accounting for 36% of the total number of funded projects; 74 projects of corneal and ocular surface diseases were funded, accounting for 17% of the total supported projects; and 65 projects of h1204 glaucoma, optic nerve and optic road related diseases were funded, accounting for 11% of the total supported projects. However, the rest of 9 research directions received no more than 10% of the total funding; the funding assistance degree of new ophthalmic diagnosis and treatment technology projects increased significantly, and the funding assistance degree of genetic eye disease projects decreased year by year. From 2015 to 2019, there are 63 supporting units of ophthalmology supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Science Fund, and universities were mainly the supporting units in ophthalmology field.

It is suggested that the key and emerging fields should be selected as the research project points, the accumulation should be strengthened and the innovation should be carried out actively. The scientific research managers and applicants should understand the funding pattern, and the supporting units should increase the investment in scientific research, refine the management and enhance the competitiveness of the scientific research personnel.