Abstract: NSFC plays an important role in promoting China's basic scientific research. In the past decade, China’s investment in Marine Science Fund has maintained a rapid growth. This paper compares the basic situation of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and National Science Foundation, United States (NSF) in the field of marine science from 2007 to 2019, including project quantity, funding amount, etc. Choosing the SCIE papers produced by the projects that are funded by NSFC and NSF in Marine Science as the research objects, this paper explores the differences in the quantity, quality and research topics of the papers produced by these projects, analyzes the differences of NSFC and NSF’s funding theme in the field of marine science, and then reveals the effects of NSFC’s funding in this field. The results show that the fund input in the field of marine science in China has increased greatly; the number of papers published and the average influence of papers are positively correlated with funded projects’ grants; the number of NSFC-funded output is higher than that of NSF, but the average influence of papers of NSFC-funded output still lags behind the international level; Both NSFC and NSF have the same funding direction and paper output theme, but the funding focus is significantly different. NSFC-funded research focuses on coastal waters, such as the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea, centering on marine natural products, taxonomy, remote sensing and ecological disasters; NSF-funded research focuses on the Gulf of Mexico, Southern Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, centering on coral reef ecosystem, climate change, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, ocean acidification and biogeochemical cycles. Basically，NSFC funding covers hot research issues in the marine field. It is suggested that in the future, NSFC funding should strengthen international scientific and technological cooperation, expand research areas, and increase funding in areas such as ocean hypoxia, biogeochemical cycle and deep sea.

Key words: NSFC, NSF, Marine Science, SCIE Paper, Funding Effect, Funding Direction