Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings such as grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.
The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says.
Today, for example, officials halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils. Panels that were scheduled to review grant proposals also received eleventh-hour word that they wouldn’t be meeting.
“This kind of disruption could have long ripple effects,” says Jane Liebschutz, an opioid addiction researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who posted on Bluesky about the canceled study sections. “Even short delays will put the United States behind in research.” She and colleagues are feeling “a lot of uncertainty, fear, and panic,” Liebschutz says.
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