Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Biomedical Research

More Details on Administration Budget Request

Posted on

We will continue to provide updates over the next several days and weeks but here are a few more details about the Administration budget request.

NIH

The $41 billion requested at the program level for the agency requests a $5 billion cut below the current year’s program level.  The budget summary argues that NIH “broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”  To partly address that, the Administration is seeking to eliminate three centers or institutes:

  • National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which, according to the budget documents, is “replete with DEI expenditures”; 
  • Fogarty International Center; and,
  • National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

ARPA-H

The agency would see its budget decrease from $1.5 billion to $945 million in FY2027.

ED

Additional programs would see lower funding levels or eliminated altogether under the budget proposal, including:

  • TRIO– $0 (currently at $1.19 billion)
  • GEAR-UP– $0 (currently at $388 million)
  • GAANN– $0 (currently at $19.5 million)
  • Federal Work Study– $123 million (currently at $1.24 billion)
  • Institute of Education Sciences (IES)– $261.3 million (currently at $790 million)

NSF

The budget request seeks to cut NSF by nearly 55%, reducing the current budget of $8.8 billion to $4 billion. Within this, there would be major cuts across the board, including: 

  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $173 million (currently $251 million), a 31% decrease 
  • NSF Total General Science and Basic Research: $3.3 billion (currently $7.1 billion) a 53% decrease
  • STEM education programs: $151 million (currently $1.1 billion), an 86% decrease
  • Within “Research and Related Activities,” funding for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate is eliminated 
  • The Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate is cut by $658 million, and the Technology, Innovations, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate is cut by $548 million
  • Consistent with a focus on “maritime dominance,” the request also includes $900.0 million in new mandatory authority to be used for construction of an Antarctic Icebreaking Vessel

Halfway through the fiscal year, NIH lags on grantmaking schedule

Posted on

As the halfway point of the federal fiscal year passes, the NIH has only obligated around 15 percent of the estimated $38 billion it has to distribute in grants and contracts, according to analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The 43-day-long government shutdown in October and November is partially responsible for these delays, as well as layoffs and departures of thousands of NIH staff members since the beginning of President Trump’s second term. Despite Congress providing $47.2 billion in total funding to the NIH in FY26, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had reportedly placed a hold on releasing funds, raising concerns that the agency was not authorizing the appropriated dollars. At a March 17 House oversight hearing on the NIH, Director Jay Bhattacharya assured the subcommittee that the agency will spend every dollar it has received from Congress.

The first half of FY25 also saw a slow start to NIH awards going out the door. This trend quickly sped up by the summer, but in an effort to spend its full budget, the NIH made the unusual shift to fund more large lump-sum payments for many years of research rather than paying for research one year at a time, resulting in fewer grantees.

Jim O’Neill nominated as NSF director

Posted on

President Trump has nominated Jim O’Neill to serve as Director of the National Science Foundation. His name was among a list of nominations sent to the Senate yesterday morning. O’Neill was removed from his position as deputy secretary of HHS last month as part of a broader restructuring, which also saw Jay Bhattacharya named acting CDC director. The NSF has been without a permanent leader since last April, when director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned as the Trump administration cut hundreds of research grants and proposed massive budget cuts.

O’Neill served as a senior HHS official during the George W. Bush administration, before moving to the private sector, where he worked closer with Peter Thiel. He was the managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management and also served as CEO of the Thiel Foundation, before joining the second Trump administration as deputy HHS secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, O’Neill would be the first non-scientist to lead the NSF.

Jay Bhattacharya named acting CDC director

Posted on

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH, is set to become acting director of the CDC, according to administration officials. He will continue to run the NIH, serving both positions until President Trump appoints a permanent CDC director that gets confirmed by the Senate.

Bhattacharya will replace Jim O’Neill, who was removed last week by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of a broader restructuring. White House officials said President Trump will name O’Neill to lead the National Science Foundation.

O’Neill was confirmed by the Senate last June as deputy secretary of HHS and had been leading the CDC temporarily after the ousting of Susan Monarez in August following her disagreements with Secretary Kennedy over vaccine recommendations. O’Neill led the CDC through its most controversial changes to vaccine policy, including removing meningitis, flu, hepatitis A, and rotavirus from the list of routinely recommended vaccines.

The restructuring also promotes Chris Klomp, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to chief counselor overseeing all HHS operations.

The leadership shake-up comes as administration officials look to focus on President Trump’s health policy moves, particularly his push to lower drug prices, ahead of the midterm elections.

Administration Seeks to Dismantle ED by Moving Programs to Different Agencies

Posted on

While publicly acknowledging earlier this year that Congressional approval would be needed to officially terminate the Education Department, the Administration announced today a series of Interagency Agreements (IAA) to move vast portions of its portfolio to other agencies in an effort to dismantle it from the inside.  The announcement from ED is available here.

Specifically, ED is proposing to move six sets of programs to four other federal agencies:

  • Programs  currently under jurisdiction of Office of Higher Education (NOT Title IV student financial aid programs) and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would be transferred to the Department of Labor– the factsheets for these agreements are here and here.
  • Most of tribal and Native American education programs would be moved to the Department of Interior– the factsheet is available here.
  • International Education and Foreign Language Studies would be shipped to State Department– the factsheet on that transfer is available here. 
  • Two sets of programs would be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services:  Foreign Medical Accreditation and Child Care Access Means Parents in School– the factsheets for these proposed moves are here and here.

Additional reports about the proposed moves are available here, here, and here.

Although these moves have been proposed by the Administration, they are unlikely to be the last word on this front.  We should expect legal and other challenges to today’s annoucements.