NIH Grants Stall Despite Congress Rejecting Trump’s 41% Budget Cut

WASHINGTON — Congress rejected the Trump administration’s proposed 41 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health for fiscal year 2026, but researchers and former NIH officials say approved grants are still being held up. Administrative reviews, staff reductions and screening for disfavored language have delayed the release of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding.

A classification called “Status 19” has become a bottleneck. Grants that once passed through this administrative stage in minutes can now remain there for weeks or months while the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the White House conduct additional screening.

Jennifer Troyer, who resigned as director of extramural operations for the National Human Genome Research Institute in late 2025, said the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initially used the review mechanism before other executive agencies took it up. Processing capacity has also fallen: hiring freezes and staff cuts reduced the number of grants-management specialists at her former institute from 11 to three.

The NIH has a $47.5 billion budget and distributes more than 80 percent of its funding through peer-reviewed scientific grants. Ordinarily, independent scientific experts assess proposals for technical merit, individual institute advisory councils conduct a second review, and agency directors clear the funds for release. Under the current administration, that pipeline has slowed significantly.

In fiscal year 2025, NIH spending ran roughly 44 days behind its average pace from 2021 to 2024. Through early July of fiscal year 2026, it was 42 days behind that baseline. Approximately half the agency’s overall budget remained unobligated by the final quarter of the fiscal year, leaving billions of dollars unspent.

The delays extend to annual renewals of existing multi-year grants, which are typically finalized at least a week before their anniversary date so funding continues for staff, clinical trials and experiments. Renewals delayed by more than 90 days rose from a 0.7 percent average in 2021-2024 to 3.9 percent in fiscal year 2025 and 2.7 percent in fiscal year 2026.

Research facilities in approximately one-third of U.S. congressional districts have been affected, with delays distributed evenly across political boundaries. In Democratic-led districts, renewals shifted from arriving an average of 3.4 days early to 8.4 days late; in Republican-held districts, they shifted from 3.8 days early to 8.0 days late.

Universities can use internal “bridge funding” to keep laboratories operating, but most such policies cap temporary support at 90 days. Longer delays can mean terminated experiments, lost research data and staff layoffs, while making universities more hesitant to back delayed federal projects.

The mix of research receiving support has changed as well. Funding for racial- and ethnic-minority health research fell 29 percent in 2025 from 2024, a reduction of more than $1 billion. Machine learning and artificial intelligence research received an additional $468 million, while networking and information technology research gained $368 million.

Those shifts align with executive directives to eliminate what the administration calls “wasteful” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) research and with an August 2025 unified NIH strategy prioritizing artificial intelligence. A database filtering system flags terms including “DEI,” “climate change,” “gender” and “vaccine hesitancy.” Institutions with flagged grants have faced mandatory renegotiation of titles, abstracts and project descriptions to secure funding. At the University of Southern California, the CaRE2 Health Equity Center had to remove “equity” from its name, becoming the CaRE2 Health Center.

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard defended the Unified Funding Strategy, saying it ensures transparency, scientific rigor and unbiased, evidence-driven research. Institute directors, she said, continue to make final funding decisions under standard federal practices.

Direct cuts have also reached established programs. Funding for the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry at the University of California, San Francisco, fell from $5.4 million in 2024 to $3.7 million in 2026, leading to layoffs. Researchers warn that the combined pressures are discouraging early-career scientists and driving graduate students from academic research toward private industry.

Supporters of federal research reform say the NIH funding system has long needed disruption. Ian Banks, director of science and development at the Foundation for American Innovation, said principal investigators spend more than 44 percent of their time on administrative paperwork rather than active laboratory work. He linked the growing burden to “Eroom’s Law,” the observation that drug discovery is becoming exponentially slower and more expensive, and said alternatives such as grant lotteries warrant consideration.

Researchers acknowledge the need for administrative efficiency but have raised concerns about the lack of transparency around current restrictions. The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing a proposed rule change that would permanently give political appointees final decision-making authority over federal research grants.