NIH Grants Funding Drops

The success rate of the government agency's grant applications has hit an all-time low.

Written byJef Akst

| 1 min read

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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, ILDAR SAGDEJEV

Grant proposals submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are less likely to be funded than ever before, according to a sneak peak at this year’s success rates obtained by ScienceInsider last week. According to the new estimate put out by the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research (OER), the fiscal year that ended on September 30 saw the funding of just 17.4 percent of research grant applications—a historic low, according to a comment from NIH Director Francis Collins.

The numbers are still “preliminary,” and may rebound slightly in the final release of the data next month, OER chief Sally Rockey told ScienceInsider. Still, it’s a significant drop from the 32 percent of grants the agency was funding around the turn of the millennium, and ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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