STAT+: Draft Trump budget proposes NIH consolidation and 40% spending cut
Draft Trump budget proposes a $20 billion NIH budget cut in 2026 and a sweeping consolidation
A draft Trump administration budget for the Department of Health and Human Services leaked to reporters on Wednesday proposes a massive $20 billion cut for the National Institutes of Health in 2026 — roughly a 40% reduction — and a sweeping consolidation.
Previous plans floated by Republican members of Congress have proposed restructuring the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers into 15 revised ones. The Office of Management and Budget proposal, which is dated April 10 and labeled “Pre-decisional,” goes much further — consolidating down to just eight.
The scale of the proposed budget cut drew strong reactions from research stakeholders. “Short-term, this is going to be a really big deal,” said Jason Owen-Smith, executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science, a consortium of dozens of universities. “Long-term, it represents, conservatively, a fundamental change in the national aspirations of the U.S. in the field of biomedicine. I don’t think there’s another way to think about a change of this magnitude.”
