By Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya told a U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday he was hopeful that President Donald Trump’s administration would reach a settlement with universities that have had research grants suspended.
“I’m very hopeful that a resolution being made with the universities where those decisions have been made, where those grants have been paused,” Bhattacharya said while appearing at a hearing of the Senate Appropriation Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies on the NIH’s 2026 budget request.
Dozens of scientists, researchers and other employees at the NIH issued a rare public rebuke on Monday ahead of the hearing, criticizing the Trump administration for major spending cuts that “harm the health of Americans and people across the globe,” politicize research and “waste public resources.”
The NIH has terminated 2,100 research grants totaling about $9.5 billion and an additional $2.6 billion in contracts since Trump took office Jan. 20, they said in the letter. The contracts often support research, from covering equipment to nursing staff working on clinical trials.
The White House wants to reduce U.S. health spending by more than a quarter next year, with the NIH facing the brunt with a cut of $18 billion, or 40%, from this year’s budget, leaving it with $27 billion. The Trump administration wants to cut funding altogether for four of the agency’s 27 institutes and centers while consolidating others into five new ones.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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