\t National Institutes of Health competitive grant funding <\/p>\n
In the past decade, the National Institutes of Health awarded top scientists $9 billion in competitive grants each year, to find cures for diseases and improve public health.<\/p>\n
This year, something unusual happened\u2026<\/p>\n
In the past decade, the National Institutes of Health awarded top scientists $9 billion in competitive grants each year, to find cures for diseases and improve public health.<\/p>\n
This year, something unusual happened\u2026<\/p>\n
Starting in January, the Trump administration stalled that funding. By summer, funding lagged by over $2 billion, or 41 percent below average.<\/p>\n
Starting in January, the Trump administration stalled that funding. By summer, funding lagged by over $2 billion, or 41 percent below average.<\/p>\n
But in a surprising turn, the N.I.H. began to spend at a breakneck pace and narrow this gap.<\/p>\n
But in a surprising turn, the N.I.H. began to spend at a breakneck pace and narrow this gap.<\/p>\n
There was a catch, however: That money went to fewer grants. <\/p>\n
Which means less research was funded in areas such as aging, diabetes, strokes, cancer and mental health.<\/p>\n
There was a catch, however: That money went to fewer grants. <\/p>\n
Which means less research was funded in areas such as aging, diabetes, strokes, cancer and mental health.<\/p>\n
Includes new grants and competitive grant renewals. In 2025 dollars.<\/p>\n
To spend its budget, the N.I.H. made an unusual number of large lump-sum payments for many years of research, instead of its usual policy of paying for research one year at a time.<\/p>\n
As a result of this quiet policy shift, the average payment for competitive grants swelled from $472,000 in the first half of the fiscal year to over $830,000 in the last two months.<\/p>\n
While this might sound like a boon for researchers, it\u2019s actually a fundamental shift in how grants are funded \u2014 one that means more competition for funding, and less money and less time to do the research.<\/p>\n
In the past, the N.I.H. typically awarded grants in five annual installments.<\/p>\n
In the past, the N.I.H. typically awarded grants in five annual installments.<\/p>\n
Researchers could request two more years to spend this money, at no cost.<\/p>\n
Researchers could request two more years to spend this money, at no cost.<\/p>\n
Under the new system, the N.I.H. pays up front for four years of work.<\/p>\n
Under the new system, the N.I.H. pays up front for four years of work.<\/p>\n
And researchers can get one more year to spend this money.<\/p>\n
And researchers can get one more year to spend this money.<\/p>\n
Which means that they get less money on average, and less time to spend it.<\/p>\n
Which means that they get less money on average, and less time to spend it.<\/p>\n
And because these fully funded grants commit all of their money up front, it means that the agency\u2019s annual budget is divided into fewer projects, instead of being spread among a larger number of scientific bets.<\/p>\n
The new policy directive came from the White House\u2019s Office of Management and Budget, which in the summer instructed the N.I.H. to spend half of its remaining funds to fully fund research grants. In the past, the agency would do so only in special circumstances.<\/p>\n
The White House has said this would \u201cincrease N.I.H. budget flexibility<\/a>\u201d by not encumbering its annual budget with payments to previously approved projects. It has said it plans to continue this policy<\/a> in 2026, while proposing to shrink the agency\u2019s budget by $18 billion<\/a>, or nearly 40 percent<\/a>. (The Senate<\/a> and House<\/a> rejected the White House\u2019s proposed budget cuts, but have not yet agreed on the agency\u2019s budget.)<\/p>\n \u201cMy sense of it was that the administration wanted to clear the decks,\u201d said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the N.I.H.\u2019s National Cancer Institute, who said she was sharing her views, not those of the institute.<\/p>\n The new policy is being instituted as the Trump administration has tightened its hold over federal science funding. Earlier this year, it delayed reviewing grants in order to vet research by political appointees, culled projects that mentioned D.E.I. and fired thousands of employees or pressured them to retire early. (The N.I.H. lost nearly 3,000 employees<\/a> this year, or about 14 percent of its work force, based on a New York Times review of the agency\u2019s shutdown contingency plans.)<\/p>\n \u201cThey brought everything to a stop,\u201d Dr. Kobrin said.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the N.I.H. managed to spend most of its budget<\/a> by the end of the fiscal year. \u201cMy colleagues did an outstanding job to work their butts off to approve things,\u201d said Theresa Kim, a program officer at N.I.H.\u2019s National Institute on Aging.<\/p>\n Something similar happened at the National Science Foundation, which is the second-largest federal funder of research at U.S. universities, after the N.I.H.<\/p>\n The N.S.F. started the year with funding delays caused by the Trump administration, and it lost about a third of its employees in layoffs or forced retirements. The agency ended the year awarding 25 percent fewer new grants.<\/p>\n New grants awarded by the National Science Foundation, 2015\u201325 <\/p>\n Facing a proposed $5 billion cut<\/a> to its $9 billion budget, the N.S.F. fully paid off many of the grants that were on its books, a strategy that employees dubbed \u201cpaying down the mortgage.\u201d It also paid for nearly all new awards upfront (though, unlike at the N.I.H., not necessarily for less time and money).<\/p>\n To draw these conclusions, The Times used public data to analyze nearly every competitive grant \u2014 over 300,000 in all \u2014 that the N.I.H. and the N.S.F. awarded since 2015, and interviewed many employees at these agencies.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we found:<\/p>\n 1. Fewer grants in every area of science and medicine<\/p>\n Together, the N.I.H. and the N.S.F. had a nearly $60 billion annual budget for funding future breakthroughs in science and medicine, about a quarter of which is typically spent on new grants or competitive renewals.<\/p>\n This year, both agencies made far fewer competitive awards:<\/p>\n Competitive grants at the \u2026 <\/p>\n National Institutes of Health National Science Foundation <\/p>\n The White House has said it is streamlining scientific funding by eliminating wasteful spending<\/a> and cutting \u201cwoke programs<\/a>\u201d that \u201cpoison the minds of Americans<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But the more than 3,500 fewer competitive grants from the N.I.H. this year touched every area of biology and medicine:<\/p>\n Competitive grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health <\/p>\n Figures are rounded. In 2025 dollars.<\/p>\n In practice, this means thousands of very competitive projects in areas like cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorders and public health improvements most like went unfunded in 2025.<\/p>\n Similarly, at the National Science Foundation, the roughly 3,000 fewer new grants encompassed reductions to every area of science (and the social sciences):<\/p>\n New grants awarded by the National Science Foundation <\/p>\n Number of grants Funding amount<\/p>\n Directorate2015-24 avg.2025ChangeSocial, behavioral and economic sciences<\/a>935501-46%Biology<\/a>1,143735-36%Geosciences<\/a>1,483964-35%STEM education<\/a>1,087758-30%Computer science<\/a>2,0171,459-28%Engineering<\/a>1,7551,461-17%Math and physics<\/a>2,5122,094-17%Technology and innovation<\/a>757657-13%Office of the director<\/a>132205+55%Total11,8218,834-25% <\/p>\n Figures are rounded. In 2025 dollars. Table includes only directorates with spending in 2025.<\/p>\n There were fewer new grants awarded in biology, geosciences, STEM education, computer science and engineering, math, physics, technology and innovation.<\/p>\n Only the office of the director awarded more new grants this year, which funds projects that don\u2019t neatly fall into other categories. That growth was fueled by a previously established N.S.F. goal to expand fellowships at universities in regions that have historically received less federal funding.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has also taken the unusual step of canceling thousands of active health and science grants<\/a>, citing a lack of overlap with its priorities.<\/p>\n The website Grant Witness<\/a> has estimated that the administration canceled or froze 5,415 N.I.H. grants<\/a> this year, of which roughly half have been reinstated through court cases or negotiations where universities have agreed to some of the administration\u2019s demands. And it canceled or froze 1,996 N.S.F. grants<\/a>, of which nearly a third have been reinstated, according to Grant Witness estimates.<\/p>\n 2. More competition<\/p>\n It\u2019s simple math: Fewer grants implies more competition for federal funding.<\/p>\n Take the category of research grants known as R01<\/a>, the oldest and most prestigious grant that the N.I.H. awards. An acceptance or rejection can make or break a scientist\u2019s career.<\/p>\n These grants fund topics such as studying the impact of e-cigarettes on brain health<\/a>, modeling the movements of mice<\/a>, or devising new methods to kill mosquitoes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year, only one in six<\/a> were funded. But this year, the agency awarded 24 percent fewer R01 grants.<\/p>\n R01 grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health <\/p>\n This means fewer scientists had their research funded. Last year, the N.I.H.\u2019s National Cancer Institute funded R01 applications from new investigators that fell in the top 10 percent<\/a> based on scoring by the agency. But by the end of fiscal year 2025, it funded only the top 4 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody believes that a fourth-percentile and a fifth-percentile grant are clearly of different quality,\u201d Dr. Kobrin said. \u201cIt\u2019s just not that precise a measurement.\u201d<\/p>\n 3. A drop in grants mentioning diversity<\/p>\n The Trump administration has prioritized eliminating research that involves diversity, equity and inclusion<\/a>, and has eliminated hundreds of keywords<\/a> related to diversity on federal websites.<\/p>\n A Times analysis found a steep reduction in the share of competitive N.I.H. grants whose titles or abstracts included flagged D.E.I.-related keywords (such as \u201cequity,\u201d \u201cracial minority\u201d or \u201cunderserved patient\u201d) on a list shared by N.I.H. employees.<\/p>\n Share of competitive N.I.H. grants that included flagged D.E.I.-related keywords <\/p>\n The data shows a big surge in these keywords after 2020, during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n While some of the decline in 2025 could be attributed to a change in the language that researchers use to describe their work, it also probably reflects a drop in research related to minority health. For example, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities<\/a> awarded 61 percent fewer competitive grants this year, the steepest decline at any arm of the N.I.H.<\/p>\n N.I.H. employees said they did not receive clear guidance on how to determine if a project was D.E.I.-related. Instead, they were sent spreadsheets of grants that had been flagged for not complying with the Trump administration\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re constantly hearing that things have been flagged,\u201d Dr. Kobrin said.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody wants to acknowledge what they were flagged for.\u201d<\/p>\n 4. Fewer fellowships for future scientists<\/p>\n The government provides critical funds for training new scientists through graduate student, postdoctoral and early-career fellowships and grants.<\/p>\n The N.S.F. has run a prestigious graduate research fellowship program<\/a> since 1952. It funds three years of research for around 2,000 of the country\u2019s top science graduate students.<\/p>\n Number of graduate research fellowships awarded by the National Science Foundation <\/p>\n This year, it awarded 536 fewer such fellowships. The government originally planned<\/a> to eliminate 1,000 fellowships, but later added about 500 more<\/a> after facing protest from scientists and academics.<\/p>\n The cut affected most fields, with fellowships in four areas \u2014 life sciences, psychology, STEM education and social sciences \u2014 being cut by more than half. Fellowships in computer science, an administration priority, grew by almost 50 percent.<\/p>\n National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships <\/p>\n Field2015-24 avg.2025ChangeLife Sciences516214-59%Psychology11756-52%STEM education2914-52%Social sciences15979-50%Math9056-38%Geosciences12284-31%Engineering575406-29%Chemistry176154-13%Materials research5863+9%Physics139166+19%Computer science141208+48%Total2,1211,500-29% <\/p>\n There were also months of delays<\/a> in publishing the fellowship application for next year, and new eligibility restrictions<\/a> that exclude second-year Ph.D. students from applying, which may lower the numbers of fellowships in future years.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an incredibly shortsighted and regressive change,\u201d said Kevin Johnson, a former program director at N.S.F.\u2019s geosciences directorate, because second-year graduate students are usually better prepared to conduct research.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sends a signal to future potential applicants that science is not supported and is not valued,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Early-career scientists are usually more reliant on federal funding because they have few alternatives to fund their research and training. Many go on to work in industry afterward, further fueling the economy.<\/p>\n In a 1945 report<\/a> that led to the creation<\/a> of the N.S.F., Vannevar Bush, who directed military research and development during World War II, argued that the government should invest in training the next generation of scientists to ensure American scientific progress.<\/p>\n But many experts worry that the recent funding cuts and budget reductions may threaten America\u2019s role as a global scientific leader.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally know many scientists in my field leaving the United States altogether,\u201d Mr. Johnson said.<\/p>\n About the Data<\/p>\n For grants from the National Institutes of Health, we downloaded data from N.I.H. RePORTER<\/a> from fiscal year 2015 onward, and filtered out intramural projects, R&D contracts, interagency agreements, subprojects and grants administered by other entities. We looked only at grants labeled as new (type 1) or competitive renewals (type 2, 4C and 9) that were awarded during the fiscal year. (We did not include noncompetitive renewal grants, which are ongoing annual payments to research awarded in past years.)<\/p>\n For grants from the National Science Foundation, we downloaded data from the N.S.F.\u2019s award search<\/a> website from fiscal year 2015 onward. We analyzed both standard grants, where all of the money is committed up front, and continuing grants, where the money is paid in annual increments. (We did not include payments made to grants that were awarded in past years.) For grants that were awarded in past years, we used USASpending.gov<\/a> to identify when each grant was awarded. Data for the graduate research fellowship program was retrieved from the program\u2019s award listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n All dollar figures are adjusted to August 2025 dollars, and the data is updated as of Nov. 25, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Institutes of Health competitive grant funding In the past decade, the National Institutes of Health awarded top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,5286,31483,1452,31482,172,31484,31485,9,24,63,3730,31481,129,131,130,1069,1876],"class_list":["post-58329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-budgets-and-budgeting","tag-diversity-initiatives","tag-donald-j","tag-federal-aid-us","tag-medicine-and-health","tag-national-institutes-of-health","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-research","tag-science-and-technology","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}