Latest from the White House (June 24)

‘Forward Funding’ by NIH the New Norm?

As COSSA has been reporting, the Trump Administration released details of its fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget proposal last month (see related article), which not only includes major funding reductions for federal science agencies, but also major shifts in policy. One such shift is how research grants would be funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to the NIH budget request, the agency plans to “continue the FY 2025 policy of reserving half of NIH funding allocated toward competing research project grant (RPG) awards for awards that fully fund their outyear commitments as part of the initial grant obligation, to facilitate efficient management of resources across multiple years.” In other words, if you are among the few researchers awarded NIH grants in FY 2026, you may receive funding to cover the duration of the project in year one instead of incrementally over five years, for example.

The Administration estimates that between the proposed budget cuts to NIH, reinstatement of a 15 percent cap on direct costs, and fully funding half of its grants in FY 2026, NIH could support 4,312 competing research project grants (RPGs), a decrease of about 30 percent, and 22,183 noncompeting RPGs, which would be about 27 percent fewer projects than in FY 2025. The budget also estimates that with a 15 percent cap on indirect costs (which continues to be hotly debated, see related article), the average cost for competing awards in FY 2026 would be reduced by about 11 percent to $863,000.

As COSSA has said many times, the President’s budget request is just one proposal on the table; at the end of the day Congress has the final say over FY 2026 appropriations. House and Senate appropriators are working now to craft their spending bills (see related article) which may or may not include provisions pertaining to these NIH policy proposals.