Although the National Institutes of Health spent its entire external grants budget in fiscal 2026, a STAT analysis of federal spending data shows the agency is still leaving researchers in the dark. The roughly $34 billion budget was fully awarded after a slow start, but the total number of funded projects fell to about 58,000, down from 61,000 in fiscal 2025 and well below the roughly 63,700 awarded annually in the years before the second Trump administration. STAT notes the final count could rise slightly because of lags in the NIH grants database.
Researchers interviewed and surveyed by STAT said delays in the grant review process are slowing the pace of their work and making it harder to propose and conduct innovative science. The analysis also found that the NIH continued to reduce grant awards involving health disparities, race, and ethnicity in fiscal 2026. At the same time, the agency made little progress on two other stated priorities: distributing funds more evenly across the country and expanding support for early-career scientists, whose grants plateaued.
The decline in new awards may be tied to the White House's push to fully fund more multiyear grants in advance, which left less money on hand for new grants. The result, according to STAT, is deep uncertainty among researchers even though the agency technically spent its full budget.