Even though Congress rejected cuts to the NIH budget and passed a funding bill more than a month ago, that money isn’t yet making it into the hands of researchers, experts say.
In an analysis of grants data from NIH RePORTER, a former NIH institute director determined that overall, grants are being awarded at close to a normal pace, but fiscal year 2026 has far fewer awards than the past several years before that.
New awards and competitive renewals are being hit hardest, according to Jeremy Berg, PhD, former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
While 1,189 awards in this category have been made in fiscal year 2026, there were 2,546 in the same time period in fiscal year 2024, Berg found.
Non-competitive renewals are down compared to prior years, but are increasing at close to normal pace, Berg wrote in a post on Bluesky.
“I think they’re prioritizing non-competitive renewals because those are ongoing projects” that are staffed up and already in place, Berg told MedPage Today. “They’re trying to get the money out the door for those, and they’re also a little bit simpler for them to manage.”
Non-competitive renewals are essentially a routine administrative function by which researchers are given the next year’s worth of funding for a multi-year grant that was previously awarded. They don’t involve convening study sections or advisory councils, Berg said.
Competitive renewals, on the other hand, are more akin to new awards as they do require the convening of study sections and advisory councils. They often happen when teams are wrapping up a current grant but still have new lines of questioning to pursue.
In both scenarios, however, delays in funding can wreak havoc on teams, Berg said. Even if funding is only delayed by a few days, it can cause substantial setbacks if institutions are forced to cut teams in the interim.
“I think the vice provost for research and the people who are making these calls are earning their salaries, because it’s hard,” Berg said. “You’ve got two bad answers. You can end up spending millions of dollars that you’re never going to get back. Or you can cause ongoing research to be stopped or set back … just because of a cash flow problem.”
Berg believes there are three key reasons why the flow of money from the NIH to researchers has slowed. One is that many institutes are short-staffed and grant managers may be facing major backlogs.
Another is that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) hasn’t granted the agency spending authority to fund awards, as part of the apportionment process, which was first reported by Nature. OMB issued a policy last year that requires agencies to submit detailed spending plans before being authorized to do so, according to the report.
The money that is getting out comes from carryover funds from a November stop-gap funding measure, according to reports.
“The uncertainty is so damaging, and I think OMB is comfortable doing it because I think it’s just another way to make universities struggle,” Berg said.
Finally, Berg said applications are still being screened for alignment with agency priorities, which could be leading to delays.
“NIH has frequently said there are no banned words, but there are,” Berg said. “There is an AI [artificial intelligence] system that they use to check grants to make sure that they’re aligned with agency priorities.”
NIH did not comment on the funding holdup after being sent a list of questions by MedPage Today. It did, however, respond to a separate query on the decline in notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) over the past year.
NOFOs are essentially research projects that institute and center directors and their teams determine are important and should be investigated.
The agency appears to be reducing the number of NOFOs in favor of investigator-initiated research, Berg said.
Since the Trump administration came to power, the NIH posted only 84 NOFOs, down from 787 in the previous year, Science reported.
“NIH has restructured its funding opportunity announcements to increase transparency and simplify the grant application process by reducing the number of highly specific NOFOs and directing applicants to submit through broader parent announcements whenever possible,” an agency spokesperson told MedPage Today. “This approach lowers administrative burden, improves clarity for the research community, and increases efficiency in funding decisions.
Source link : https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy/120291
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Publish date : 2026-03-13 14:38:00
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