Survey: One in Four NIH-Funded Labs Has Cut Staff Amid Funding Crisis
March 26, 2026 · 2 min read
Claire Cummings
More than one in four NIH-funded research labs has laid off staff, and 40 percent have cancelled planned projects, according to a national survey of nearly 1,000 researchers published by STAT on March 19.
The findings paint a grim picture of the human toll behind the federal funding slowdown. Two-thirds of respondents said they now advise students to pursue careers outside academia—a striking reversal for a field that has long relied on graduate pipelines to sustain the research enterprise.
Clinical Trials and Patient Care at Risk
The damage extends beyond laboratory walls. Survey follow-ups documented patient dropouts from clinical trials, permanent lab closures, and at least one researcher who accepted a 95 percent pay cut to avoid laying off staff.
"This is like the Titanic hitting the iceberg," said Steve Shoptaw, director of the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. "People are still eating at the table, music's still playing, and yet the ship is sinking."
Junior faculty face especially acute pressure. Eighty-one percent of junior tenure-track scientists told surveyors that ongoing research disruptions could jeopardize their tenure prospects. R01 grant awards to early-stage investigators dropped from 1,423 in 2024 to 1,114 in 2025, and the trend appears to be worsening in FY2026.
The Forward Funding Problem
Compounding the slowdown is NIH's expanded use of multiyear forward funding, where entire grant budgets are disbursed upfront rather than annually. The practice consumed 30 percent of competing grant funds in FY2025, up from 16 percent in FY2024. Independent analyses estimate this shift alone could eliminate roughly 970 new grants in FY2026.
At the National Cancer Institute, the odds of a researcher securing funding have dropped from one in 10 to one in 25.
Building a Diversified Funding Strategy
The survey underscores a reality that many principal investigators have been slow to accept: federal research funding alone is no longer a reliable strategy. Researchers should explore NSF cross-disciplinary programs, foundation grants, and SBIR/STTR pathways. Tools like grantedai.com can help identify alternative funding sources across federal and private funders.
Only 35 percent of researchers whose grants were cut or delayed in 2025 reported full restoration—a signal that disruptions may persist well beyond any single fiscal year.