NIH Grants Generated $94 Billion in Activity But Multi-Year Shift Cut 5,564 Awards
March 14, 2026 · 2 min read
David Almeida
For every dollar the National Institutes of Health invested in research during fiscal year 2025, $2.57 in economic activity flowed back into the U.S. economy. That is the headline from the 2026 Annual Economic Report published by United for Medical Research, AAMC, Act for NIH Foundation, and the Gerontological Society of America.
A $94 Billion Return on $36.6 Billion
The $36.58 billion NIH awarded to researchers across all 50 states and the District of Columbia in FY2025 supported 390,863 jobs — spanning principal investigators, lab technicians, support staff, and the local supply chains that serve them — and generated $94.15 billion in new economic activity nationwide. Over the past decade, that cumulative impact has reached $822 billion and 3.7 million jobs.
Those numbers matter right now because the White House has proposed cutting NIH funding by nearly 40% in its FY2026 budget request. Research advocates, including the Association of American Universities, are pointing to the economic data as evidence that biomedical research funding is not a cost center but a growth engine.
The Multi-Year Funding Trade-Off
But buried in the report's economic triumph is a structural shift that has rattled the research community. To spend its full budget by the September 30 deadline after earlier disbursement delays, NIH expanded its use of multi-year funding — obligating the total value of certain grants upfront rather than distributing annual installments. In FY2025, multi-year funding consumed $3.61 billion, or 30.1% of all competing grant funding, up from $1.4 billion (16.2%) the year before.
The result: 5,564 fewer grants funded in FY2025 compared to FY2024, even as the total budget held steady. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia experienced at least a 10% decline in the number of awards. Overall success rates dropped to approximately 17% — the lowest level in nearly 30 years. Early-stage investigators saw funding rates fall from 26% to 19%.
What Researchers Should Watch in FY2026
The FY2026 appropriations bill caps multi-year funding at FY2025 levels, which may stabilize new award counts. But the tension between executive budget proposals and congressional appropriations remains the defining variable for NIH-funded researchers this year. Grant seekers tracking these shifts can find deeper analysis of federal funding trends on the Granted blog.