NIH Director Promises to Speed Up Grantmaking

The National Institutes of Health has been slow to distribute grants this year, but Director Jay Bhattacharya assured House appropriators in an oversight hearing yesterday that the agency will have no problem spending all of its appropriated funds before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“We did this last year,” Bhattacharya said, praising the work of his NIH colleagues, who, “despite all the disruptions,” managed to spend all the funds allocated to the agency in fiscal year 2025. He also assured appropriators and scientists that the agency is committed to “identifying excellent projects,” that are not driven by political priorities, adding that, “the grants are already going out the door.”

NIH is reportedly lagging far behind in awarding grants this year compared to 2021-2024, and the amount of funding it has distributed is also much less than usual. In part, this is because the White House Office of Management and Budget has been slow to authorize the release of the agency’s funding, but reductions in NIH staff and changes in funding strategy by the agency may also be contributing to delays.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) told the committee that OMB approved NIH’s apportionments on Monday night. She said she considered the approval to be good news, but added, “I find it disconcerting that it took a congressional oversight hearing to prompt OMB to do what it should have done weeks ago. We are nearly halfway through the fiscal year, and NIH’s grantmaking is well behind schedule.”

Both Democrats and Republicans on the Appropriations Committee urged Bhattacharya to move quickly to spend the $48.7 billion budget they provided NIH for fiscal year 2026 — a slight increase over the previous year and a resounding rejection by Congress of the 40% budget cut that the White House proposed. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also asked Bhattacharya for updates on the hiring process for senior leaders within the agency, noting that 16 of NIH’s 27 centers and institutes are currently without permanent directors. Bhattacharya told the committee that he is interviewing two to four people per week. “When the interviews reach my level, they’ve gone through this long process of scientific vetting,” Bhattacharya said, adding that, “Normally, that takes years. We’ve accelerated it.”

“You’re going to start to see people appointed this month, and you’re going to see a steady flow of those,” Bhattacharya said. He also assured Democrats on the committee that his hiring recommendations would not be based on political ideology. “The recommendations I’m going to make are based on scientific leadership and scientific capacity for hiring each of those positions,” Bhattacharya said, adding, “It’s too important to leave to politics.”

Bhattacharya also fielded questions from committee members about his recent appointment as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bhattacharya acknowledged committee members’ concerns that running both NIH and the CDC is too much for one person, stating that he is “committed to making sure that whoever the next director is has a CDC that’s working.” He also praised CDC staff for their professionalism and willingness to discuss disagreements over public health, noting his past criticism of the agency and his staunch opposition to COVID vaccine mandates.

The Trump administration has not yet named a nominee to lead the CDC, though time is running out for it to do so if it wants Bhattacharya to continue his dual roles through the confirmation process. The CDC’s most recent leader, Jim O’Neill, was serving in an acting capacity. O’Neill was recently nominated to lead the National Science Foundation.