STAT+: NIH awarded all its grant funding, but delayed and opaque decisions stymied researchers

A STAT analysis of National Institutes of Health spending shows that in the 2026 fiscal year, the agency continued reducing grant awards involving health disparities, race, and ethnicity, but made little progress on other Trump administration priorities — including disbursing funds more evenly across the country and expanding support for early-career scientists. As in the prior year, the agency spent its entire external grants budget of roughly $34 billion, though it got off to a slow start; the way it went about that spending is what is sowing deep uncertainty among researchers.

In a survey and interviews, scientists said delays in the grant review process are slowing the pace of their work and making it difficult for them to propose and conduct the sort of innovative, impactful science the NIH exists to support.

Overall, the agency funded around 58,000 projects, a slight drop from the 61,000 awarded in the 2025 fiscal year and well below the roughly 63,700 grants awarded annually in the years before the second Trump administration. That number could rise somewhat in coming weeks because of reporting lags in the NIH grants database. The smaller grant count may stem from the White House's push to fully fund more multiyear grants in advance, which left less funding on hand to issue new awards.

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