BEIJING -- The National Natural Science Foundation of China has raised its funding budget to 33 billion yuan ($5.2 billion) in 2022, up 6.8 percent over last year.

A major funding source in China for basic research and frontier exploration, the NSFC financed 48,800 programs in 2021, with a total investment of more than 31.2 billion yuan, the science foundation said Thursday.

Li Jinghai, head of the NSFC, said the science foundation will bolster funding support in the fields of basic science, technical science, life sciences and medicine and interdisciplinary studies, with a particular focus on research involving COVID-19 and carbon emissions.