NIH Agrees to Evaluate Stalled Scientific Grants

NIH Agrees to Evaluate Stalled Scientific Grants

By Dan Vergano edited by Claire Cameron

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has agreed to review hundreds of medical science grant applications after they were paused under new Trump administration diversity-related restrictions. The terms of the agreement, which comes amid an ongoing legal fight over science funding, will see the NIH assess each grant on scientific merit and ignore the antidiversity orders.

The stalled study applications covered by the lawsuit, which was brought against the NIH by science organizations including the American Public Health Association and individual scientists, are on subjects ranging from Alzheimer’s research to HIV to minority health and sexual violence.

“I look forward to having my funding proposal evaluated fairly,” said plaintiff Nikki Maphis of the University of New Mexico, who studies brain aging, and the effects of Alzheimer’s and alcohol use, in a statement.

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Previously, a federal judge in June ruled that hundreds of NIH grant terminations were “void” and “illegal” because they violated discrimination laws, but the status of stalled grant applications was left to a separate future decision. Internal NIH directives issued by the Trump administration in February and in May had effectively barred funding research on diversity objectives, gender identity or COVID. And while the Supreme Court in August ruled the judge lacked jurisdiction in the case, it declined to stay the finding that the NIH’s directives were unreasonable and unlawful. The dispute over terminated grants has since been sent to a federal appeals court in Boston, which will continue the proceedings in early January. In the meantime, the NIH’s new agreement reopens stalled grant applications for review while that case proceeds, settling that side of the dispute.*

“Defendants will complete their consideration of the Applications in the ordinary course of NIH’s scientific review process, without applying the Challenged Directives,” the agreement states. A judge will oversee their good-faith application.

NIH did not admit any wrongdoing or commit to funding the studies in the agreement; it will merely review them. The NIH declined to comment on the stalled applications in a statement to Scientific American, saying: “The agency remains committed to supporting rigorous, evidence-based research that advances the health of all Americans.”

Still, while the agreement doesn’t guarantee that the studies will receive grant funding, science advocates were cheered by the progress it represented.

“This agreement is important progress for the researchers impacted by unlawful government intervention in the standard grant review process,” says Colette Delawalla of the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science. “I’m especially relieved for early-career scientists who have been disproportionately affected.”

*Editor’s Note (12/30/25): This paragraph was updated after posting to correct the timing of the federal ruling and to clarify the content and timing of the NIH directives.

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