STAT+: Despite resumption of NIH grant reviews, research funding gap grew
NIH has made no progress in narrowing the funding gap created by the freeze on grant approvals despite resuming grant review meetings
At his confirmation hearing in March, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya assured the Senate health committee that he would restart grant reviews, after a months-long suspension by the Trump administration, and get all of the agency’s congressionally appropriated money out the door. When the key committees resumed meeting the next month, it appeared to be a positive step toward restoring the flow of billions of dollars in biomedical research funding to universities and medical schools.
But a new STAT analysis has found that since then, the NIH has made no progress in narrowing the funding gap created by the freeze on grant approvals. In fact, compared with the total amount of grant awards in past years, the extramural funding deficit has grown over the past two months — from $2.3 billion at the end of April to at least $4.7 billion by mid-June. That’s a 29% drop from average funding levels during the same months of the previous nine years.
And with only three months left in the fiscal year, the odds that the NIH will be able to spend all of its $47 billion budget are rapidly dimming. At that point, any uncommitted funds will be returned to the Department of the Treasury — gone for good — in a move that would test a 1974 law meant to prevent the president from unilaterally reversing spending decisions made by Congress.
