| Objective According to Xinjiang's project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, this paper explores issues on discipline subject, talents, and cooperative research to provide decision making references. Methods Information about the funded research in Xinjiang during 2014 2018 was collected from NSF annual funding project statistical report, scientific project funding guidelines and related literature articles, retrospective statistical analysis were conducted to discuss the overall situation and trends. Results There were 2 295 research projects were funded in Xinjiang by NSF from 2014 to 2018, with a total funding amount of 105.056 billion yuan.The number of projects funded was decreased by an average of 1.12% of the national level. The largest number of funded research came from regional support, accounted for 1 683, among which most of the projects were supported by the Ministry of Life Sciences accounted for 525 and 31.78% of the total funding. The lowest number of research funded was by the Department of Mathematics, Physics, Information Science, and Management Science, accounted for 76 and 4.6%. Conclusions Compare to the total number of projects funded in the whole country, the proportion of projects funded in Xinjiang has declined. Xinjiang internally funded universities and regions have developed imbalanced.Local talent has been seriously drained, and there is a lack of discipline leaders. It is recommended to strengthen project cooperation and retain talent. |