Researchers described 2025 as chaotic, demoralizing, confusing, destabilizing and transformational. Widespread grant freezes and terminations prompted many to question the nation's commitment to research and raised concerns about job, staff and income losses. Expectations for 2026 focus on rebuilding, setting standards and clearer written policies to define how grants are funded and which priorities receive federal investment. Major agencies implemented freezes and cancellations affecting projects on vaccines, climate change and disparities impacting women, LGBTQ+ and minority communities. The federal response signaled the use of research funding to advance ideological goals and to exert greater control over universities, while courts blocked some sweeping changes, maintaining policy uncertainty.
"Ask just about any federally funded researcher to describe 2025, and they use words like chaotic, demoralizing, confusing, destabilizing and transformational. "It's been a very destabilizing year [that's made] people question the nation's commitment to research," Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, told Inside Higher Ed. She expects 2026 to be a year of rebuilding and standard setting."
"Speaking of the National Institutes of Health, which calls itself the world's largest public biomedical research funder, Pierce said the research community is expecting more major regulation and written policy changes in 2026, which will shed more light on how grants will be funded, how much the federal government will invest in the research enterprise and what priorities will emerge from this administration."
#federal-research-policy #grant-freezes-and-terminations #nihnsf-funding #political-influence-on-science
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