Scientists have warned that the Trump administration’s funding cuts threaten a broad range of research. Now, a new analysis finds that the president’s budget request would cut federal funding for research and development by 22%, from $198 billion for fiscal year 2025 to $154 billion for fiscal year 2026. Basic research — the kind that focuses on the advancement of knowledge and seeks answers to big, theoretical questions — would be cut by a third, from $45 billion to $30 billion.
The analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science “added up cuts to the budgets of hundreds of federal agencies and programs that do scientific research or provide grants to universities and research bodies,” according to The New York Times. “It then compared the funding appropriated for the current fiscal year with the administration’s proposals for fiscal year 2026.”
The White House budget request outlined in early May called for a roughly 56% cut in funding for the National Science Foundation, from $8.8 billion to $3.9 billion. It also proposed to slash the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services by 26%, or more than $33 billion, including an $18 billion reduction at the National Institutes of Health.
Sudip Parikh, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals, warned at the end of May that Trump’s 2026 budget request “would end America’s global scientific leadership.” Other experts have echoed that admonition.
Alessandra Zimmermann, a budget analyst at the science association, told the Times that, accounting for inflation, the proposed $44 billion reduction in federal R&D funding would result in the lowest level of federal spending on science in this century and could allow China to take the global lead in scientific investment.