NIH Director Promises Agency Will Spend Full Budget This Year

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya promised a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday that the agency will spend its full $48.7 billion budget by the end of the 2026 fiscal year, addressing concerns about a slowdown in grant awards.

Roughly halfway through the fiscal year, the agency has awarded 74% fewer competitive, or new, awards than the average for the same period during 2021-2024, according to an analysis by Johns Hopkins researchers.

The lag had raised concerns that the NIH would have to return unused funds to the treasury at the end of the year. But Bhattacharya said on multiple occasions during an oversight hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies that the agency would fully spend its budget.

The hearing comes amid ongoing scrutiny of NIH grant funding under the current administration. Bhattacharya, who was appointed NIH director, has faced questions about the pace of grant awards and concerns from the scientific community about funding consistency.

The NIH budget supports research at universities and research institutions across the country, funding thousands of grants annually for biomedical research.