funding

Report: US scientists lost $3 billion in NIH grants since Trump took office

Since Trump took office on January 20, research funding from the National Institutes of Health has plummeted by more than $3 billion compared with the pace of funding in 2024, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

By this time in March 2024, the NIH had awarded US researchers a total of $1.027 billion for new grants or competitive grant renewals. This year, the figure currently stands at about $400 million. Likewise, funding for renewals of existing grants without competition reached $4.5 billion by this time last year, but has only hit $2 billion this year. Together, this slowdown amounts to a 60 percent drop in grant support for a wide variety of research—from studies on cancer treatments, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, vaccines, mental health, transgender health, and more.

The NIH is the primary source of funding for biomedical research in the US. NIH grants support more than 300,000 scientists at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research organizations across all 50 states.

In the near term, the missing grant money means clinical trials have been abruptly halted, scientific projects are being shelved, supplies can’t be purchased, and experiments can’t be run. But, in the long run, it means a delay in scientific advancements and treatment, which could echo across future generations. With funding in question, academic researchers may be unable to retain staff or train younger scientists.

UMass disbands its entering biomed graduate class over Trump funding chaos

biomedical, funding, graduate programs, grants, health, NIH, research, Trump / Beth Washington / March 14, 2025

Many schools are now bracing for steep declines in support. At Duke University, administrators have implemented hiring freezes, scaled back research plans, and will cut the number of admitted biomedical PhD students by 23 percent or more, according to reporting by The Associated Press. The school took in $580 million in grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health last year.

At Vanderbilt University, faculty were sent an email on February 6 instructing them to reduce graduate admissions by half across the board, according to Stat. The outlet also reported that faculty at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health have reduced admissions.

Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania also reported having to rescind admission offers to applicants and were directed to significantly reduce admission rates, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, too, is shrinking its graduate programs, according to the WKOW.com.

Beth Sullivan, who oversees graduate programs at Duke, told the AP that the shrinking classes mean a shrinking pipeline into America’s medical research community, which dominates the world’s health research fields and is a significant force in the country’s economy. “Our next generation of researchers are now poised on the edge of this cliff, not knowing if there’s going to be a bridge that’s going to get them to the other side, or if this is it,” Sullivan said.

“This is a severe blow to science and the training of the next generation of scientists,” Siyuan Wang, a geneticist and cell biologist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, told Nature. “With fewer scientists, there will be less science and innovation that drive societal progress and the improvement of public health.”

This post was updated to correct Rachael Sirianni’s job title.

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