Women and early-career researchers bore the burden of NIH’s funding disruptions

When the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) cancelled nearly 2300 ongoing research grants last year and froze funding for another 1500-plus projects, it was female and early-career researchers who were disproportionately affected. That is according to new analysis of public federal grant data by researchers who warn that the findings highlight the vulnerability of early-stage investigators and workforce diversity during periods of funding instability.

Almost 58% of the grants that were abruptly halted in the middle of the funding period were led by women. 630 of the terminated grants had been awarded to projects led by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and pre-tenure assistant professors.

The proportion of cancelled grants that had been led by women varied across different institutions. For example, more than 64% of terminated grants at the University of Michigan were female-led, with median awards of $383,000 (£289,000) for women versus $20,000 for men. At Harvard University, by comparison, women represented just under 40% of affected investigators, with median cancelled grants of $362,000 compared with $689,000 for men. Meanwhile, at Johns Hopkins University, women led half of the cancelled projects but lost more than two thirds of terminated funding.

Using NIH figures, the team calculated that the $2.5 billion in terminated grants translated to almost $6.3 billion in ‘unrealised economic output’. Since women led a larger share of training and early-career grants, the cancellations ‘disproportionately disrupted’ stages of the research pipeline where women are most represented, the researchers note.

‘These findings provide a timely descriptive portrait of the researchers affected by the 2025 NIH terminations and the characteristics of interrupted projects,’ the team noted. The researchers added that ‘sustained attention to equity, stability, and workforce support’ will be essential to maintaining US scientific leadership and ensuring that future disruptions do not disproportionately affect emerging talent.