How Executive Orders Are Slowing NIH Grant Funding: An Insider's Analysis
By
Elizabeth Ginexi
Summary
A former NIH program official with 22 years of experience explains why NIH grant funding has slowed to a crawl despite Congress appropriating $47 billion for fiscal year 2026. The article analyzes how executive orders and administrative changes under the current administration are causing severe delays in grant processing, creating a bottleneck that threatens to leave billions unspent. The author draws on insider knowledge of how the NIH grant system traditionally worked versus how it operates now, detailing specific procedural hurdles, policy shifts, and bureaucratic slowdowns that are blocking research funding.
Source
bskyHow Executive Orders Are Slowing NIH Grant Funding: An Insider's Analysiselizabethginexi.substack.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledCongress appropriated $47 billion for NIH research in fiscal year 2026. The President signed it into law on February 3, 2026. Many researchers assumed the worst was over.
But the grants are being awarded at a super, super slow pace right now, leading many to worry whether the NIH will spend all of its money by the end of the current fiscal year.
I spent 22 years as a program official at NIH. I know how the system worked and how it has changed.
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