US Biomedical Research Funding Crisis Threatens a Generation of Scientists
Key Insights
NIH obligated funding has dropped 20-30% under the Trump administration, with leadership vacancies at 15 of 27 NIH centers stalling grant decisions.
Nearly 5,900 NIH grants were unexpectedly terminated last year, disproportionately affecting younger researchers and women.
The average age of first-time R01 grant recipients reached 43 as far back as 2008, with researchers now spending over 40% of their time on administrative tasks.
Disruptions to federal research funding during the current Trump administration have left the US biomedical research enterprise in crisis, with leadership vacancies, frozen grants, and ideological scrutiny combining to hobble scientific progress. At a recent Association of Health Care Journalists conference, experts described a system where obligated funds from the National Institutes of Health have fallen 20-30% compared to pre-administration levels, even as budgeted amounts remain stable on paper.
Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges (search), noted that a year into the administration, there is no confirmed leadership at 15 of the NIH's 27 centers. "These are the people who make funding decisions. And without heads of these important institutions, no funding is happening," Pierce said. "This illustrates just how broken the science funding infrastructure is."
Money that is not obligated by the end of the federal fiscal year reverts to the US Treasury, Pierce added, meaning that appropriated research dollars are effectively being lost rather than redirected.
The Human Toll of Funding Uncertainty
Michael Bronstein, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Minnesota, described wasting a year without conducting science while navigating administrative hurdles and grant paperwork. Bronstein told conference attendees he agonized over whether to amend his research focus — originally vaccine hesitancy among mentally ill adults — to something less politically provocative. He ultimately shifted to studying medication adherence but was still forced to wait another year for his grant money.
Amid the disruption, an early-career researcher in Bronstein's lab struggled to pay bills and questioned whether a science career remained viable. "A generation of scientists could be lost," Bronstein warned.
The experience of Michael Green, a recent Ph.D. graduate from Duke University, illustrates the precarious position of young investigators. Green's NIH grant — awarded in 2024 to investigate why sick people do not seek medical care — was stalled after his grant officer instructed him to remove "any DEI language" from his project. After removing the word "Black" from his proposal and links to studies on discrimination in healthcare, Green still waited months without resolution. With his grant salary in limbo, he bartended without health insurance while awaiting clarity.
Last year the NIH unexpectedly terminated nearly 5,900 grants, a move that disproportionately struck younger researchers and women. The National Science Foundation has been directed to favor research into artificial intelligence, while similar shifts have occurred at the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA.
Structural Problems Predate the Current Administration
Former NIH deputy director for extramural research Michael Lauer emphasized that the crisis reflects long-standing systemic weaknesses. "This is not a Trump problem. This is a systems problem that goes quite far back," Lauer said, noting that researchers have been warning about these issues for two decades.
As far back as 2008, the average age of a first-time R01 independent research grant recipient was 43. A 2023 OECD report noted that many young scientists in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are "trapped" in precarious, poorly paid, and overworked laboratory positions. Faced with unreliable career prospects, these scientists often leave research, particularly if they are women or have children.
Meanwhile, grant application volumes continue to rise — up 12.9% last year compared to 2024 — while success rates have fallen 29.6%. In a 2018 survey, researchers reported spending more than 40% of their time on administrative tasks, a figure that has increased over the past decade.
Lauer identified three historical culprits: federal agencies' reliance on small grants to individual scientists, which keeps scholars perpetually fundraising; increased dependence on "soft money" from grants to pay salaries, creating what one 2014 paper called "unsustainable hypercompetition"; and congressional politics that deliver yearly funding fluctuations disrupting steady scientific inquiry.
Reform Proposals and the Path Forward
Former NIH director Francis Collins sees the current crisis as a potential inflection point. "It can't just be a return to the exact same framework," Collins said. "It has to be better. This could be an opportunity to fix some issues that we've known about for a while but had insufficient momentum and clout to reform."
Lauer advocates replacing the current system of small, individual grants with longer-term, larger funding mechanisms, modeled on the historic Bell Labs approach that produced the transistor, the laser, and information theory through stable funding and long-term thinking. He points to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (search)'s Janelia Research Campus as a contemporary example, where researchers study neurobiology free from worries about tenure, grants, and paperwork.
A 2025 National Academy of Sciences report suggests paring back regulations to reduce administrative burdens, noting that 62% of new paperwork-generating regulations implemented since 1991 came after 2014. A congressional commission on biotechnology has called for a single platform for submitting funding applications across federal agencies and eliminating time-consuming preliminary data requirements.
Sam Gill, president and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation (search), characterized the leadership vacancies and slower funding pace as a proactive tactic to enact "anti-science ideology" and called the current situation "an unprecedented attack on expertise."
The NIH, a $48-billion agency, provides nearly half of all federal basic research spending — more than $22.6 billion in 2024. Yet a recent Congressional Research Service report notes that NIH funding, adjusted for inflation, was 8.8% less in 2025 than its 2003 peak. The current outlook for 2027 is flat spending.
For Green, resolution came in March when the NIH confirmed his grant had gone through, allowing him to begin his delayed investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — albeit after exhausting nearly all his savings. "As a scientist, you have to kind of be optimistic about the future and the importance of your work," Green said. "I don't think all my work is going to face these roadblocks forever."