Here’s our monthly check on NIH funding – and there’s been a lot of news about the politics around it this month.
Congress rejected the proposed cuts to science funding, and other branches of government-funded science (NASA and the NSF) have been authorized to spend their funding (yay!). However, the NIH is now being held up by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This is because the OMB changed a rule in August last year, so now instead of automatically releasing a 30-day allowance from annual funding when a budget bill is signed, only essential expenses like employee salaries are released – the OMB has to formally OK the rest.
Today, 5th March 2026, marks 30 days since the budget bill was signed and the OMB’s deadline to release the next lot of NIH funding – so we will keep a keen eye on the news, and keep you updated.
For now, let’s look at what we do have – the final month-end figures for February 2026 have just been published. They show significantly more funding was awarded vs this point in February 2025. Feb26 saw $976m awarded, vs just $430m in Feb25.
Figure 1: NIH Funding Awarded by Month Jan 2024 to Feb 2026
If we focus on the fiscal year to date, FY26 which began in October 2025, funding is broadly the same as the year prior: FY26 (Oct25 to Feb26) stands at $1,389m – a 0.13% increase vs the same period in FY25.
This is in spite of the government shutdown which spanned October and part of November 2025. In fact, from December onwards we can see an increase vs the year prior (Dec25 +8.7%, Jan26 +23.4%, and Feb26 +126.6% vs the respective prior years).
Figure 2: Change in NIH Funding Each Month for FY25 vs FY26 to date
Overall we are off to a better start in 2026 compared to this time in 2025 – and there is reason for cautious optimism.
Figure 3: Cumulative NIH Funding 2023 to 2026
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We’ll be back with another update soon.