Researchers within academic and government institutions experienced a multitude of challenges in 2025; the incoming administration paused grant review meetings, travel, and external communications, and then many agencies underwent massive reductions in force (RIF). Scientists from coast to coast saw their grants frozen or terminated, and some institutions had all of their federal money suspended.
Since then, several of these challenges have been resolved. Many universities settled their disputes with the current administration, grants were reinstated, and application reviews resumed. However, other actions like the reductions in force and more recent departures of career scientists from government agencies have left some researchers rattled. Additionally, in order to spend its research budget before the end of the fiscal year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded grants under a multi-year funding scheme, giving more money to individual projects. While this allowed the agency to use its funds, some scientists are opposed to the concept, arguing that it leads to fewer grants being funded.
As the year entered its last quarter, researchers saw the executive branch propose a 40 percent cut in funding for the NIH, the largest funder of biomedical science in the US. At the same time, scientists heard ideas to restructure the agency—either by combining or outright eliminating some institutes—a proposal to impose a fixed cap on indirect costs, and intentions to use more multi-year funding for grants.
Ultimately, none of these propositions came to pass, but several agencies, including the NIH, have less staff than they did in 2024, including in leadership roles and committees responsible for reviewing grants. Following a tumultuous 2025,, Congress and the President finalized the budget for the new fiscal year on February 3. With these in consideration, researchers shared a range of reactions and outlooks toward science in 2026.
Lost Personnel and Abandoned Procedures Leave Researchers Worried
Elizabeth Ginexi left her role as a program officer at the NIH due to strain after massive reductions in force and uncertainty about whether her role and the center she worked for would be maintained.
Submitted by Elizabeth Ginexi
Elizabeth Ginexi, currently a research scientist at Indiana University, saw many of the changes that occurred at the NIH firsthand; she was a program officer at the National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health within the NIH, where she had worked since 2003. She recalled how the terminations that occurred in early 2025 felt indiscriminate and unplanned: They resulted in the loss of not only staff to review the scientific grants but also to provide technological support and to oversee payroll.
“There was a hope amongst many of us that would sort of stabilize and return to normal over time, but it never did,” she said. Instead, Ginexi said that she and her colleagues were required to return to working on-site, where they felt they were being surveilled by people helping with an initiative led by Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency, which directed the RIFs.
She ultimately chose to leave the NIH in April 2025 because she was concerned about how well she would be able to do her job without interference. “I felt like the science was being compromised, and I didn’t want to be a part of that,” Ginexi said.
She also expressed concern about how the recently vacated institute director roles would be filled. These directors set the funding priorities and strategies of the institutes. Normally the process to fill these roles would involve search committees that interview and vet candidates.
“It’s my understanding that that process has now been co-opted by the NIH director and HHS, and they are not doing that kind of external and internal committee process any longer,” she said, highlighting how one recent appointee to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences appeared to get his position through his association with the Vice President. “That’s unprecedented that you get your job because you’re friends with the Vice President. That has never been the criterion on which we choose scientific directors for the National Institutes of Health, so that’s very sad,” she said.
The apparent abandonment of normal hiring protocols also concerned Annapurna Poduri, a physician scientist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University. “If those processes are not being followed, I think it leaves open the question of who is going to be brought in for these leadership positions?” she said. She added that for some leadership positions, she’s seen applications where the window is only two weeks, which is unusual. “I’m confident that operations are going to continue and incredible, dedicated people are dedicating their time and efforts to make sure they continue through this year. But what happens next? I think part of our collective anxiety is that we don’t know, and we don’t know if anybody knows.”
Annapurna Poduri accepted the role of deputy director at the NINDS, but she returned to academia when hiring freezes and RIFs complicated the full transition of her team to the institute.
Anna Olivella, Harvard Brain Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital
In 2024, Poduri accepted the position of deputy director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). However, due to the hiring freeze that prevented her from fully moving her team to the institute and, later, the uncertainty of her position following the firing of federal probationary employees, Poduri ultimately returned to academia.
Reflecting on many of the changes in 2025, from hiring and funding freezes, changing the grant peer review process, and suspending previously announced funding opportunities, Poduri said that these actions upended the careers of many scientists, especially those early in their career. “Even as we begin to have decisions from courts that have reversed some of the things that happened and new processes that are supposed to be helping us move forward, I think we can’t ignore what’s happened in the past year,” she said.
She and Ginexi also addressed concerns about the dwindling number of members on advisory councils for grant reviews. If the councils do not have a quorum, then the meetings cannot occur, and awards won’t be made. Similar to the interrupted processes for filling director roles, the researchers said that the normal procedures for identifying, vetting, and confirming new members to these councils did not appear to be occurring. “There’s some real concern there because I don’t think we know what the processes are going to be,” Poduri said.
Justin Ryder, an obesity scientist at Northwestern University and Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, echoed the importance of these advisory committees. “When we start to lose some of that knowledge, it really diminishes our capacity to be able to review grants both in a timely fashion but also make sure that the best science is being pushed forward,” he said.
Ryder added that not having experienced reviewers on these panels could also lead to variability in the quality of grant reviews, possibly upsetting the scientific community’s trust in the system. He said that he is hopeful that these positions will be filled with researchers that meet the typical standard for expertise.
Norman “Ned” Sharpless, a cancer biologist at the University of North Carolina and former director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), said that these councils also provide external advice to the NIH’s various institutes. “It’s in the best interest of the NIH to try and staff those councils appropriately so that the directors can benefit from that wisdom,” he said.
Intact Federal Funding Makes Researchers Hopeful
Justin Ryder expressed concern about how unfilled advisory councils could impact grant reviews across the NIH.
Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Turning to 2026, Ryder is hopeful that the research community will begin to see stability. “We saw how sensitive the biomed research ecosystem is and how even small disruptions can really make substantial changes to the environment that we work [in],” he said. “I’m hopeful that those bumps in the road, though, are behind us.”
One promising point, he said, is the recently passed federal budget for 2026, which included a $400 million increase to NIH funding compared to the 2025 budget. Ryder was particularly excited about funding provided for children’s hospital graduate medical education programs and pediatric research networks. “It’ll be a win for biomedical science, and it will be a win for pediatric health,” he said.
Sharpless, who also previously was the acting commissioner at the US Food and Drug Administration agreed, saying, “It’s a decent budget increase, a cap on multi-year funding, and things like restructuring the NIH and indirect costs have been punted down the road as has occurred in the past.” He added, “That’s good news for American scientists that your work is still quite valued by our representatives.”
Indeed, a large amount of the additional $400 million in funding was directed to the NCI, where Sharpless said grants historically have had low success rates because of the high number of applications that the agency receives. This should improve funding rates. “The ample funding from the federal government coupled with the advances in science—the things going on in AI, machine learning, and data handling and then also novel molecular techniques and all of these things—are conspiring to really make it a great time to be a cancer researcher in the United States,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff in the newspaper that’s scary, but if you hunker down and write grants, I think, and do good work, then it’s a good time to be a cancer researcher.”
Ned Sharpless, formerly an NIH institute director, said filling leadership roles at the agency will be important, but he expressed optimism about research in 2026.
Submitted by Ned Sharpless
The budget also gave Poduri hope about the coming year for research. “Pursuing a career in science right now has all of the excitement and all of the intensity and all of the true need,” she said. However, she added, “We need to do more than just have funds. We need to have processes that are really going to address the questions and that are going to be fair and open to everybody and that will also acknowledge that there’s been this period of uncertainty.”
Indeed, Ginexi said that she remains concerned about the future of biomedical research. “The NIH is working with far fewer staff than it had in 2024. Even as they have potentially the same budget…they just don’t have the people to do the work,” she said. “I don’t know how sustainable that will be.”
Sharpless agreed that staffing shortages could present a challenge for the research community if it leads to the NIH not being able to perform its necessary functions. Additionally, he said, “It’s in everyone’s best interest for good stable leadership to be recruited in these roles as quickly as possible.”
On the whole, though, he remained optimistic. “I’m very excited about the future of biomedical research, and I think any objective person in the United States would be if they could quiet the noise of what’s going on in the federal government and just focus on what’s happening in science. So, I think the outlook is quite good.”
