Last year was tumultuous for US researchers, with numerous changes occurring at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While the agency eliminated billions of dollars of funding and often nixed peer-reviewed grant meetings, it was unclear who the cuts impacted the most.
A study published this week in JAMA found that, while the number of investigators sank overall, Black and Hispanic researchers received fewer research grants and fellowships than their peers in 2025.
Black researchers saw biggest decline
The study, led by Yale University researchers, examined data from NIH RePORTER about the number of principal investigators (PIs) receiving grants and people receiving fellowships annually from 2016 to 2025. They also looked at demographic information, including sex, race, ethnicity, and disability.
From 2016 to 2024, the number of PIs grew from 41,357 to 52,137, a 26.1% increase. But in 2025, the number of investigators dropped to 50,043, a 4.0% decline. Fellowship recipients similarly saw growth before last year, with the number of awardees increasing from 3,297 to 4,324 from 2016 to 2021. In 2022, the number of fellowship recipients dipped. By 2025, 3,705 people received fellowships.
In fiscal year 2025, the number of NIH-funded investigators declined for the first time in a decade.
From 2024 to 2025, the number of female PIs receiving grants fell from 18,654 to 18,100. The number of Asian researchers dropped slightly, from 10,700 to 10,659 from 2024 to 2025. Black PIs experienced the biggest decline, from 1,627 in 2024 to 1,468 the following year—a 9.8% drop. Hispanic researchers also received fewer grants, with the number of PIs falling from 2,839 in 2024 to 2,632 in 2025, which is a 7.3% loss.
From 2024 to 2025, fellowship recipients overall saw a decline, but sex distribution remained the same. Female fellows declined from 2,399 to 2,150, while male fellows fell from 1,477 to 1,357. More Asian people received fellowships in 2025, rising from 636 in 2024 to 648. The number of fellowships awarded to Black people decreased from 205 to 122 in 2024 and 2025, respectively. The number of Hispanic fellows also dipped, from 499 to 334.
“In fiscal year 2025, the number of NIH-funded investigators declined for the first time in a decade,” the authors wrote. “These declines were not evenly distributed: investigators from groups historically underrepresented in science experienced disproportionately larger declines than their peers.”