US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains
Article Date: 20 January 2026
Article URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00088-9
Article Image: final-frame-desktop-1920×1080.jpg
Summary
Nature’s analysis quantifies the first year of the Trump administration’s impact on US research: more than 7,800 grants were cancelled or frozen, roughly 25,000 staff left federal science agencies, and the administration proposed historic cuts — a 35% reduction amounting to about US$32 billion — to non-defence research funding.
The article breaks the damage into clear sections: cancelled grants (NIH and NSF account for the vast majority), large reductions in new grant awards, a collapse in new international student enrolment, and a major loss of agency staff. Some grants have been reinstated by courts or settlements, but about 2,600 remain unfunded, representing roughly $1.4 billion. Congress, so far, has resisted the worst of the proposed cuts, but negotiations continue.
Key Points
- Over 7,800 research grants were cancelled or suspended in 2025, including 5,844 at the NIH and 1,996 at the NSF.
- The administration disproportionately targeted research on misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, infectious diseases and studies involving under-represented groups.
- About 2,600 grants remain unfrozen or unreinstated, equating to roughly $1.4 billion in unspent funding.
- New grants awarded dropped sharply in 2025: NSF funding fell ~25% and NIH awards fell ~24% versus the previous ten-year averages.
- New international-student enrolment to US universities fell an estimated 17% for 2025–26, squeezing the pipeline for future researchers.
- Federal science agencies lost about 20% of staff in 2025 (over 25,000 people), with EPA, NASA and FDA among the hardest hit.
- The administration proposed unprecedented cuts (NIH ~40%, NSF 57%, NASA science 47%), but the House and Senate have largely rejected the steepest reductions in initial spending bills.
- Final 2026 funding levels are still being decided and will likely land between the administration’s proposals and congressional offers, which would blunt the most extreme reductions.
Context and relevance
This piece matters because it converts policy moves into tangible losses: cancelled projects, fewer early-career opportunities, and a smaller federal workforce to manage and approve research. Those changes affect not only academic labs but public-health preparedness, climate research, and the US research ecosystem’s global competitiveness. The article ties the numbers to broader trends — visa issues affecting student intake, multi-year award strategies that reduced the count of new grantees, and legal pushes that have partially restored funding.
Author’s take (punchy)
Clear, data-driven and urgent: Nature lays out a rapid, measurable rollback of US science capacity in one year. If you’re involved in research, policy, university administration or science funding, this is a crucial snapshot of what has already changed and what could still be saved — or lost.
Why should I read this?
Short version — if you care about research money, jobs or what science the US actually does next, this article gives the cold numbers and the likely outcomes. We did the heavy lifting: the piece condenses legal rulings, budget fights and workforce data into a single view so you don’t need to chase a dozen sources.