How did NIH and NCI funding levels change from 2017–2020 and which specific research programs lost support?

1. Budget trajectory: Congress pushed up NIH and NCI funding, despite White House proposals

Congress increased NIH appropriations across these years and, by FY2020, provided a notable boost: Congress increased NIH by $2.6 billion for FY2020 and NCI saw roughly a 5% boost within that package, yielding an NCI budget around $6.3–$6.4 billion in FY2020 ^{[1] [3] [2]}. These enacted increases contrasted with recurring White House budget proposals that sought cuts — for example, the FY2021 White House proposal would have cut NIH substantially and included a proposed 9% NCI reduction — but Congress repeatedly rejected those proposed cuts and instead raised appropriations ^[2].

2. How increases translated to grants and paylines

NCI reported that the FY2020 appropriation allowed it to raise R01 paylines — moving the payline from the 8th percentile in FY2019 to the 10th percentile in FY2020 — and it anticipated funding more than 125 additional competing awards compared with FY2019 ^[1]. The institute emphasized that the FY2020 boost meant it could extend support to both established and new investigators and that R01 obligations accounted for a substantial portion of its $6.4 billion budget that year ^{[1] [3]}.

3. Program-level additions in 2019–2020: targeted child-focused investments

The NCI’s base appropriations explicitly incorporated new, targeted initiatives beginning around 2020: the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) was incorporated at $50 million per year proposed for 10 years starting in 2020, and the Childhood Cancer Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research (STAR) Act funding (about $28 million) is noted in NCI materials ^[4]. These are examples of programs that gained explicit new, multi-year funding commitments in that timeframe ^[4].

4. What we don’t see in the available reporting: program-level cuts or terminations

Available sources in the provided set do not present a catalog of specific research programs that lost funding between 2017 and 2020. NCI and NIH summary pages and analyses focus on overall appropriations, paylines, and new targeted investments ^{[4] [1] [3]}, but they do not list programs eliminated or specifically reduced in that 2017–2020 window—so claims about particular programs “losing support” are not substantiated in these documents (available sources do not mention programs that lost support).

5. Workforce and award-type shifts that suggest shifting priorities

Analyses of NCI R01 awards indicate structural changes in the award landscape: by 2017 many PIs were receiving new Type 1 awards rather than renewals, and by FY2020 NCI was spending roughly $1.6 billion on R01 grants within its $6.4 billion budget, reflecting both staffing and award-pattern shifts rather than discrete program cancellations ^[3]. These data signal shifts in who and how research was funded (new investigators, paylines), which can have programmatic consequences even without named program cuts ^[3].

6. Caveats and competing perspectives

Advocates and internal NCI commentary framed the FY2020 increases as restoring momentum and allowing more grants to be funded ^[1]. By contrast, presidential budget proposals during the period repeatedly sought reductions — a competing political view that Congress did not adopt ^[2]. Detailed, program-by-program impact assessments and any localized reductions would be found in more granular appropriations language, internal NCI allocation tables, or subsequent NCI fact-book breakdowns rather than in the summary sources provided here (available sources do not mention detailed program-level cuts).

If you want, I can: (A) extract year-by-year NIH and NCI enacted appropriation numbers and percent changes from congressional tables (needs sources beyond those provided), or (B) search for NCI’s FY2017–FY2020 Fact Book or Congressional Justifications to list any specific program reductions or line-item shifts documented in those reports (I can run that search now).