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Were National Cancer Institute (NCI) or NIH grants reduced under Trump and by how much?
Executive summary
Reporting shows the Trump administration enacted multiple policies and unilateral actions that sharply reduced how many NIH projects keep or receive funding and how large awards are — for example, analyses say NCI paylines fell from roughly 10% to about 4% (one-in-10 to one-in-25) under a new multiyear “up‑front” funding policy [1]. Independent tallies and news outlets estimate between roughly $1.8 billion and $2.7 billion in NIH grant dollars were terminated early, while many news analyses say thousands of grants were frozen or ended and that NIH proposed budget cuts of ~40% [2] [3] [4].
1. What changed: new funding rules and overhead caps
The administration pushed two big technical shifts that combine to shrink grant awards. First, NIH institutes were directed to “upfront” fund multiyear awards (pay a larger share of a project’s years at once), which reduces the number of competing projects that can be funded in any given year and has been credited with collapsing paylines — for NCI from about 10% to ~4% (one‑in‑25) in several reports [1] [5]. Second, the White House sought to cap indirect (overhead) rates paid to institutions at 15%, a change described as removing roughly $4 billion a year from institutional support and legally contested in multiple suits [6] [7]. NCI’s own funding strategy page describes reductions, upfront funding goals, and percentage reductions applied to modular grants under the FY2025 posture [8].
2. Measured portfolio effects: terminations, frozen funds, and paylines
Multiple outlets and studies quantified the immediate damage. A JAMA-based summary and news reports show about 694 NIH grants (totaling ~$1.81 billion) were terminated in an early wave, with NCI among the most affected [2]. Senate and watchdog analyses reported higher aggregate figures — for example, a Senate minority report cited $2.7 billion cut through March 2025 [3]. Investigations by Nature and others mapped nearly 800 projects terminated in 2025 and thousands more frozen or disrupted, and noted that NIH-wide paylines and odds of new awards fell sharply, especially at NCI [9] [1].
3. Concrete impact at the National Cancer Institute
Sources point to a dramatic fall in NCI funding odds tied to the upfront funding policy. Science reporting and Forbes summarized internal estimates and NCI statements indicating the NCI payline moved from near 10% to around 4% under the new approach — meaning far fewer investigators win grants [1] [5]. NCI’s public guidance also documents institute-level policy choices to reduce future-year commitments and apply fixed percentage reductions to modular awards, which institutional leaders read as a formal contraction of award sizes and counts [8].
4. Broader context: proposed budgets vs. unilateral actions
The administration’s FY2026 budget proposal sought much larger cuts — reporting cites a proposed ~40–43% reduction in NIH grant support compared with 2025 levels [4] [7]. Congress resisted many of those proposals in some appropriations actions, but the administration still implemented unilateral management actions (grant terminations, policy changes, and new political review layers) that caused real reductions independent of appropriation law, according to investigative coverage [10] [9].
5. Disagreement among sources and limitations
Numbers vary: JAMA‑based tallies and Cancer Therapy Advisor cite ~$1.8 billion in terminated grants [2], the Senate minority analysis reports $2.7 billion through March [3], and outlets like Nature and Science describe nearly 800 terminations and broad disruptions without a single consolidated dollar figure [9] [1]. Some reporting focuses on policy mechanics (upfront funding, overhead caps) while others document legal fights that temporarily blocked parts of the policy [7]. Available sources do not mention an authoritative single NIH-wide percentage reduction in total NCI or NIH grant counts across the entire period; estimates differ by dataset and date [2] [3] [9].
6. Stakes and reactions: science, trials, and politics
Coverage highlights concrete downstream harms — disrupted clinical trials and tens of thousands of trial participants affected in later analyses, and warnings from NCI leaders about loss of principal investigators and staff [11] [1]. Political actors frame the changes differently: critics call them a coordinated defunding of biomedical research, while administration spokespeople say the changes aim to “realign priorities” and curb perceived ideological spending [3] [12]. Legal challenges and some court orders temporarily blocked elements like the 15% overhead cap, showing the dispute is judicial as well as political [7].
Conclusion: available reporting documents substantial, measurable reductions in grants and grant dollars at NIH and at NCI tied to the Trump administration’s multiyear funding policy, indirect‑cost limits, and targeted terminations — with estimates ranging from about $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion in terminated funds early on, and sharp falls in NCI paylines from roughly 10% to about 4% cited in multiple outlets [2] [3] [1]. Sources differ on totals and the long‑run picture; Congress, courts, and ongoing audits remain active arenas for further clarification [7] [13].