The US National Science Foundation (NSF) will award about 30% fewer new research grants this fiscal year than in the last one, Nature has learnt. The steep drop continues a pattern that began last year, after US President Donald Trump took office, leaving the NSF with the lowest number of new grants awarded in more than four decades. A major funder of basic science, the NSF struggled to make awards this year with a workforce that has been cut by the Trump administration and uncertainty around the funds available for spending. But the decline in new grants in 2026 can now be attributed mainly to US$1 billion of the agency's $8.8-billion budget being held in a central account, inaccessible to core grant-issuing programmes. Staff members, who spoke to Nature on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, say that much of that money is being allotted to a White House project called the Grand Research Challenges, which is aimed at scientific fields such as advanced materials and...
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