NIH Research Spending Picks Up in July but $10.6B Still Left

With two months to go in the fiscal year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has about $10.6 billion left to spend, according to an analysis of NIH data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The data brief analyzes NIH spending from Oct. 1 of last year through July 31 and shows the agency, which is a key source of research funding for American universities, has obligated $23.3 billion to 38,858 grants so far—about 69 percent of its grant budget. The agency is about $1 billion ahead of where it was this time last year but about $2.4 billion behind allocations for fiscal year 2024. AAMC noted in the brief that NIH picked up the spending pace in July.

NIH continues to fund research grants up front—a move that helps the agency get more federal dollars out of the door, but one that critics argue leaves less money to fund new research projects.

According to the AAMC brief, so far this fiscal year, NIH has allocated $1.1 billion in multiyear funding toward 1,402 research grants.

“This is almost four times greater than the amount awarded to competitive [multiyear-funded research project grants] by this point in FY 2024 ($290.6 million) and nearly twice the amount awarded in FY 2025 ($556.4 million),” the brief states.

Congress capped how much the NIH can use to forward fund the grants, which raises “questions as to how the agency will allocate the remaining funds if it cannot rely on the multiyear funding mechanism as was done at the end of FY 2025,” AAMC wrote in the brief.

NIH said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed that it’s on track to award its entire budget for fiscal year 2026.

“[Publicly available] data show that, as of the end of July, the agency has exceeded last year’s pace in both the number of awards issued and the amount of funding obligated (made more than 200 more awards and obligated more than $1.5 billion more in grant funds),” the NIH brief added.