Federal Research Grants

The modern system of federal research funding grew out of World War II and Vannevar Bush's 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier, which argued that government should fund basic research at universities rather than run all science itself. Congress created the National Science Foundation in 1950, and the National Institutes of Health grew into the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. Federal agencies spent close to 200 billion dollars a year on research and development in the mid-2020s, most of it at the Defense Department and NIH.

Most grants are awarded through competition. Researchers submit proposals that are scored by panels of outside scientists in a process called peer review, and agencies fund the best-scored proposals their budgets allow, often fewer than one in five at NIH. Grants pay for scientists' salaries, equipment, and supplies, and for the shared costs of running research institutions. The money supports about half of university research nationally and trains most new scientists.

In 2025 agencies terminated thousands of grants involving diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender identity, vaccine hesitancy, and other topics, froze funding to some universities in disputes over campus policies, and proposed cuts of 40 percent or more to NIH and NSF. In August 2025 the Supreme Court allowed NIH terminations to proceed and said challenges seeking money belong in the Court of Federal Claims. For fiscal 2026 Congress largely rejected the proposed cuts, funding NIH at about 47.5 billion dollars and NSF at about 8.8 billion. Supporters of the changes say grants should reflect administration priorities and avoid waste, while scientists say the disruptions undermine research and the training pipeline.