NSF, NIH lagging in awarding grants
The National Science Foundation has awarded just 613 grants this fiscal year, at about 20% the level at this time in the year in each of fiscal years 2021 through 2024, according to the group Grant Witness. The amount of funding awarded is at similarly low levels, about one-third that of previous years. The trend is visible across each of NSF’s directorates. New and competitive award renewals, which undergo full peer review, are particularly low compared to previous years. The National Institutes of Health has seen a similar trend regarding its number of awards, having given out about 10,000 awards this year compared to around 18,000 at this time in previous years; total award funding is also down by a similar amount. NSF and NIH are even lagging behind fiscal year 2025, during which thousands of grants were canceled and fewer grants were awarded than in previous years.
Science agencies targeted again in next year’s budget
The Trump administration has proposed significant cuts to many science agencies in its budget request for fiscal year 2027, including:
- A 54% cut to the National Science Foundation;
- A 47% cut to NASA's Science Mission Directorate, as well as a 23% cut to NASA's overall budget;
- A 28% cut to the National Institute of Standards and Technology;
- A 13% cut to the Department of Energy's Office of Science, despite a 2% increase to DOE's overall budget;
- A 10% cut to the National Institutes of Health;
- No funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research arm; and
- Cuts to basic research at the Department of Defense and the U.S. Geological Survey.
In contrast, the administration proposed a 12% increase to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget (over total fiscal year 2026 funding, which includes funds from the reconciliation bill enacted in July) to maintain and expand nuclear capabilities. The “skinny” budget documents released last week include many topline funding amounts as well as specific proposals that the administration seeks to call attention to, but they do not include comprehensive program-level numbers, which will be released at a later date.
In several cases, the cuts are similar to those the administration proposed last year, which Congress largely rejected in its final budget for fiscal year 2026. Last year’s request similarly proposed deep cuts across NSF directorates, dozens of NASA Science mission cancellations, and eliminating funding for NOAA’s Office of Atmospheric Research.
The request proposes providing NSF with an additional $900 million for a new research icebreaker, but those funds are separate from the rest of the agency's budget. The agency terminated its lease on the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker last year.
The request proposes several reorganizations at NSF, including moving the Office of Polar Programs out of the Geosciences Directorate and folding the account that funds the STEM Education Directorate into the Research and Related Activities account. It would also eliminate the NSF’s Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, though it would preserve the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics as a separate program.
The request reiterates AI and quantum as administration priorities, proposing using $1.2 billion from the Biden-era Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for DOE’s recently created Office of AI and Quantum, which the request states will coordinate all DOE AI and quantum information science activities, including those related to the Genesis Mission. The request also specifies that the funds would go to supercomputers at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Labs. However, the request does not include funding for the American Science Cloud, which DOE calls the “cornerstone of the Genesis Mission’s platform infrastructure.”
The proposed cut to NIST is similar in size to the 28% cut proposed last year. The request says it aims to eliminate awards for “the development of curricula that advance a radical climate agenda.” The request proposes reorganizing NIST lab programs and standards coordination programs into several more specific funding lines mainly centered around measurement and standards, as well as advanced manufacturing R&D, resilience and fire research, and neutron research.
The White House describes the NIST proposal as a cut of $993 million, or 54%. However, the $993 million figure includes hundreds of millions of dollars that Congress placed in NIST’s budget last year to fund projects unrelated to the agency. Congress provided NIST with $1.8 billion for fiscal year 2026, of which $662 million was set aside for extramural construction and community projects, commonly referred to as earmarks. Congress often uses NIST’s budget line to store earmark funding. Excluding earmarks, NIST’s 2026 budget was $1.2 billion, meaning the proposed $853 million in funding for the agency amounts to a cut of $331 million, 28%, from agency programs, divided as follows:
- -$115 million from Scientific and Technical Research and Services (STRS)
- -$175 million from Industrial Technology Services (ITS)
- -$41 million from Construction of Research Facilities (CRF)
Across the federal government, the request proposes eliminating funds and programs dedicated to minority-serving institutions and prohibiting funds for “expensive subscriptions to academic journals and prohibitively high publishing costs,” unless required by statute or with prior agency approval.
