How did congressional appropriations in 2026 alter NIH and NCI funding compared with the administration’s proposals?
Executive summary
Congressional appropriations for FY2026 rejected the Trump administration’s sweeping 40% cut and reorganization plan for NIH — instead preserving the agency’s structure and delivering modest increases to NIH and NCI funding compared with the administration’s proposal [1] [2] [3] [4]. Lawmakers also inserted protections that block unilateral administrative changes to grant overhead, forward-funding practices, and institute structure that the administration had proposed [5] [4].
1. The administration’s proposal: deep cuts and reorganization
The White House’s FY2026 budget proposed a program level for NIH of roughly $27.9 billion — about a 40% reduction from the FY2025 enacted level — and called for consolidating or eliminating multiple institutes and centers as part of a reorganization and other structural changes such as a 15% cap on indirect costs and moving or restructuring ARPA‑H and several ICs [1] [2] [6] [7]. The administration argued the cuts and consolidation would “focus” resources and reduce redundancy, proposing to restructure 27 separate appropriations into consolidated accounts and to transfer certain entities outside NIH [8] [6].
2. Congressional response: restores funding and rebukes restructuring
House and Senate appropriators pushed back decisively: the House committee bill funded NIH at roughly $46.9–47.2 billion and the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a $48.7 billion figure — both sharply higher than the administration request and near or above the FY2025 level [3] [9] [4]. Congressional negotiators ultimately added about $415 million above the administration’s framework and explicitly rejected the administration’s proposed cuts and unilateral reorganization of NIH [10] [11]. That reversal was bipartisan and included language preventing the administration from altering Facilities & Administrative (F&A) reimbursement rates or restructuring institutes without congressional consultation [4] [5].
3. What changed for the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Where the administration’s blueprint would have driven steep reductions across disease-focused research accounts, congressional bills preserved and modestly increased NCI funding: House language listed $7.272 billion for NCI and House–Senate negotiators reported $7.4 billion in related drafts, figures that represent an increase over baseline and stand in stark contrast to the deep grant and intramural cuts the administration outlined for cancer research under its consolidation plan [3] [9] [7]. Congressional action insulated NCI priorities from the administration’s proposed programmatic shrinkage and specific cuts to research grants and centers that analysts said would have hit cancer and aging research hard [7].
4. Policy protections beyond headline dollars
Appropriators did more than increase topline dollars: they inserted policy riders and report language blocking key administrative proposals — notably a prohibition on unilaterally changing F&A cost reimbursements and a restriction on transitioning to forward-funding half of external grants, a practice the administration said it planned to adopt that would have reduced new awards and success rates [5] [12]. Congress also signaled oversight over ARPA‑H, maintaining funding at roughly $1.5 billion in some drafts and limiting the administration’s ability to move or reshape innovation accounts without approval [9] [4].
5. Competing rationales and the implications for research
Supporters of the administration’s plan framed consolidation and tighter cost controls as a way to reduce redundancy and refocus federal science dollars, but multiple independent and advocacy groups — and appropriators of both parties — argued that abrupt cuts and caps on indirect costs would imperil the biomedical research ecosystem, reduce grant success rates, and undermine investigator-initiated science [6] [7] [13]. Congress’s choice to preserve institute structure, protect overhead, and sustain grant funding reflects both a political rebuke of the proposed austerity and an implicit judgment that the risks of rapid restructuring outweighed any administrative efficiencies [10] [5].
6. Bottom line: dollars and guardrails prevailed over overhaul
In sum, FY2026 appropriations largely nullified the administration’s proposed 40% reduction and structural overhaul of NIH by restoring NIH funding to near FY2025 levels and allocating separate, higher amounts to NCI, while adding statutory and policy safeguards that constrain the administration’s proposed changes to grant funding mechanisms, indirect‑cost policies, and institute organization [1] [3] [4] [5]. Reporting limits: final, signed appropriations language and agency implementation remain the ultimate determinants of practice and timing; sources summarize committee and enacted figures but implementation details may evolve [14].