Trump’s ‘skinny budget’ has plans to cut science and research to the bone
By 
Rebecca Trager2025-05-06T14:35:00
White House budget blueprint would slash funding for NSF and NIH by 55% and 40%, respectively, prompting dire warnings
President Trump’s budgetary blueprint for fiscal year 2026, released on 2 May, threatens to devastate the budgets of major research agencies in the US, contributing to the mounting alarm among the nation’s academic research and science advocacy groups. These groups, including the American Chemical Society (ACS), are appealing to Congress to intervene, but the situation looks bleak.
The so-called ‘skinny budget’ would, for example, slash by about 55% funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports fundamental research and education in non-medical fields of science and engineering like chemistry. The NSF distribute around $9 billion (£6.8 billion) to fundamental science every year. The president’s proposal would also cut funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – the world’s largest biomedical research funder – by about 40% from $48.5 billion to about $27 billion.