Yesterday, President Trump signed S. 3971, the “Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act.” This legislation reauthorizes the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs through 2031. Since 1982, the SBIR and STTR programs, known together as America’s Seed Fund, have invested more than $81 billion into over 34,000 small businesses. Authorization had lapsed as of September 30, freezing billions of dollars in funding across multiple agencies, as Congress debated new program reforms. This five-year extension is the longest extension in the program’s history. The legislation reforms include significant security screening expansion, proposal submission caps, and a “strategic breakthrough” award mechanism allowing for larger award amounts.
Category: Grants
Halfway through the fiscal year, NIH lags on grantmaking schedule
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
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.
Trump Administration Releases FY27 Research Priorities Document
On Thursday, the Trump Administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities and Cross-Cutting Actions Document. The document, signed by OMB Director Russ Vought and OSTP Director Michael Krastios, outlines the administration’s research priorities, describing its mission to align the government’s “role in the S&T enterprise to once again drive R&D that is bold, mission-driven, and unapologetically in service of the American people.”
Vought and Krastios list 5 top administration priorities in the coming fiscal year. The priorities are to:
- Ensure Unrivaled American Leadership in Critical and Emergin Technologies
- Unleash American Energy Dominance and Explore New Frontiers
- Strengthen American Security
- Strengthen and Safeguard American Health and Biotechnology
- Assure America’s Continued Space Dominance
The memorandum also describes the administration’s intent to undertake a number of crosscutting actions to “usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation.” These include:
- Implementing and Supporting Gold Standard Science
- Building the S&T Workforce of the Future
- Expanding and Making Accessible World-Class Research Infrastructure
- Revitalizing and Strengthening America’s S&T Ecosystem
- Focusing on High-Value Research Efforts.
Specifics regarding each priority can be found in the document linked above.
Supreme Court Rules on NIH Grant Cancellation
In a divided decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the federal government to terminate more than $783 million in active research grants from the National Institutes of Health, a move that has drawn intense scrutiny from scientists, public health advocates, and legal scholars. The 5–4 ruling, issued August 21, allows the Trump administration to proceed with its cancellation of thousands of grants tied to topics such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. The majority held that disputes over terminated grants must be heard in the Court of Federal Claims, not in district courts, effectively halting a wave of legal challenges that had temporarily blocked the cuts.
The lawsuit at the center of the case was filed in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts by a coalition of 16 states, research institutions, and advocacy organizations. In June, Judge William Young ordered the grants reinstated and invalidated the administration’s internal guidance documents that had led to the terminations. But the Supreme Court’s majority disagreed, concluding that the district court lacked jurisdiction to enforce monetary obligations tied to federal grants. While the justices left in place the lower court’s ruling against the guidance documents, they allowed the grant cancellations to proceed.
Legal experts say the shift to the Court of Federal Claims presents a steep hurdle for plaintiffs, who must now pursue complex contractual claims with limited prospects for immediate relief. Meanwhile, advocacy groups and some members of Congress are calling for legislative action to restore the funding and protect future grants from similar terminations.
Read more here.