By Kritika Agarwal
“The National Science Foundation is on track for its worst year in over half a century,” Grant Witness – a project that tracks grant disruptions across federal science agencies – warned last month.
That warning is not hyperbole. By every available measure, NSF is awarding and funding far fewer grants than in recent years, causing severe damage to the nation’s scientific research enterprise. And funding fewer projects means fewer opportunities for scientists to do the basic research that feeds future innovation and fewer opportunities for promising young scientists and students to receive the training they need to contribute to American science.
While FY25 was already one of the worst years in NSF’s recent history in terms of how many grants went out its doors, the current fiscal year is shaping up to be even worse. For context, Grant Witness found that, last year, NSF made about 8,650 awards – the lowest since 1985. (On average, between FY21-24, the agency made about 11,380 per year.)
Thus far in FY26 (which started on October 1, 2025), the agency has made only 2,179 grants. That is far fewer grants than the agency had made at this point in FY25 (3,744) – and even fewer than the year-to-date average from FY21-24 (5,865).[i]
In addition to being behind in the number of awards, the NSF also appears to be lagging previous years in terms of total dollar amounts. According to Grant Witness, the agency has obligated only $2.2 billion thus far this year (as of July 5) compared to $2.7 billion at the same point in FY25. For reference, the FY21-24 year-to-date average for the agency this time of the year was $3.4 billion.[i] NSF officials have privately claimed to university representatives that the agency has almost caught up to where it was last year in terms of spending. Even if that is true, however, Grant Witness’s numbers indicate that the agency is still significantly behind spending compared to the average from FY21-24.
The NSF Is Awarding Fewer Grants Across the Agency
The NSF is unique because of its commitment to supporting basic, curiosity-driven science that generates new knowledge. The agency has funded research that led to scientific advances that underpinned the development of the internet, artificial intelligence, MRI technology, gene editing, advanced semiconductors and computing, quantum technologies, supercomputers, advanced materials and polymers, and more. As the agency notes on its website, “Next time you talk on a cell phone, hear a weather report, search the web, or get an MRI, remember the U.S. National Science Foundation helped make that all possible, and more.”
The reduction in the number of awards is even more stark if one looks at each of the eight NSF directorates, which set priorities, run grant competitions, and oversee grantmaking in specific clusters of fields.
- Thus far in FY26, the NSF’s STEM Education Directorate (which funds research and programs to improve STEM education and the STEM workforce) has made only 45 Between FY21-24, the directorate made 500 awards on average at this point in the fiscal year.[i]
- Thus far in FY26, the NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (which supports advances in computing, data, networking, AI, and cyberinfrastructure) has made only 474 grants, compared to 838 grants on average between FY21-24 at this point in the fiscal year.[i]
- Thus far in FY26, the NSF’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate (which supports research on human behavior, societies, and economies – and which has been slated for closure under the president’s FY27 budget request) has awarded only 38 Between FY21-24, the directorate made 357 awards on average at this point in the fiscal year.[i]
- Thus far in FY26, the NSF’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (which supports foundational research in physics – research that will lay the groundwork for advances in areas such as quantum information science and fusion energy) has awarded only 550 grants, compared to 1,350 grants on average between FY21-24 at this point in the fiscal year.[i]
In fact, not one of NSF’s eight directorates is currently on track to make as many awards as they did compared to the FY21-24 average.
One bright spot this year, however, has been that the agency funded a record number of students to receive its fellowship that supports graduate students in STEM fields. This year’s class of 2,599 fellows is significantly larger than last year’s class (1,500 fellows), and even larger than the previous record of 2,554 fellows in 2023. This investment in the future of STEM talent matters – but it does not substitute for thousands of missing research grants that support major research labs and many more graduate students, undergraduates, and postdocs across the country.
Disruptions to U.S. Science
The fact that the NSF is making fewer awards has vast implications for both the future of curiosity-driven science in America and for STEM students and researchers, especially those early in their careers.
Scientists on university campuses have, in the past, been able to plan their research – including the hiring of lab personnel, the recruitment of students and postdocs, and the ordering of lab supplies and equipment – around roughly predictable NSF award cycles.
Now, however, many campuses are reporting multiple disruptions to the normal flow of grants:
- Some universities have not received new awards despite their proposals receiving high scores from NSF reviewers.
- Some campuses report that they have not received renewals for awards they had won previously.
- University researchers also report that their disbursements are delayed because agencies have gutted the professional staff who handled award distribution in the past.
This uncertainty surrounding the ability to rely on relatively predictable levels of funding from NSF and other federal research agencies is already resulting in a reduction in the ability of major universities to support and admit the same number of doctoral students in key STEM fields as they have in previous years.
Scientists are often able to access “bridge funding” from universities to cover short-term financial needs while they await federal funds, but many AAU member campuses are reporting that these funds are now running dry. As a result, universities have had to cut staff, reduce graduate student enrollment, and, in some cases, put promising research – research that could fuel the next wave of breakthrough technologies – on hold.
Here’s what we heard from some of our member universities when we asked them about what is happening regarding NSF grants on their campuses:
- One university official reported that the average wait time for their university’s NSF proposals in the review pipeline is now 207 days. The wait time for NSF proposals that were selected for awards is now 395 days. These wait times “are, obviously, creating problems as they continue to grow,” the official said.
- Another official said: “Fears about future funding and the potential career impacts are widespread among early-career faculty. The most visible impacts are for NSF CAREER awards, with one termination that came soon after the award started and others getting budget cuts. We have also lost outstanding faculty to European institutions and industry.”
- One official talked about a project that sought to improve learning outcomes by identifying knowledge gaps and creating AI content tailored to how young people consume information online, while preparing students with skills needed to compete in the global workforce. “Funding cuts halted the work, ending opportunities to advance innovative educational tools and train the next generation of interdisciplinary STEM professionals,” the official said.
- We heard from another university that a researcher was told by NSF that two pending NSF proposals would be funded in spring 2025, but the grants never came through. The researcher had to let go of their senior postdoc and full-time research staff member as a result. This meant that the researcher “was not able to train or supervise the usual 10-12 undergraduate research assistants that supported data collection, halting progress on multiple studies.”
While the effects on university research and campus communities are immediate, as Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth cautioned on the Ohio News Network, the average American won’t see the effects of what is happening next week or even next year.
They will feel the impact down the road when the pipeline of innovation and talent has run dry and when Americans miss out on the technological advances that would have been rooted in university research projects that are not receiving funding today. “It’s really our future that’s being mortgaged at this point,” she said. In a world where China has surpassed the United States in R&D spending, our nation cannot afford to defund the very research that could lead to the next technological blockbuster.
When Congress appropriated $8.75 billion to NSF in FY26, it did so with the expectation that the agency would quickly use those dollars to support a wide range of research and discovery. It is past time for Congress to use its oversight authority to press the NSF to restore a timely flow of grants to a greater number of deserving scientists.
[i] All award count and obligations data pulled from https://grant-witness.us/funding_curves_nsf.html (accessed July 9, 2026). The FY26 data are as of July 5, 2026.
Kritika Agarwal is assistant vice president for communications at AAU. All data analysis conducted by Graham Andrews, senior research analyst at AAU.