Over 700 and $1.7 billion in previously undisclosed grant terminations published by NIH
Noam Ross · May 20, 2025
726 additional additional terminated grants were reported by NIH this week, amounting to over $1.70 billion in total grant value, with $780 million remaining unspent. This brings the total number of terminations in our NIH database to over 1500 and $7.5 billion in total value.
Thanks to scientists self-reporting these terminations, we know these are not all recent terminations. 58 of the 726 were previously reported by scientists to Grant Witness, with dates as early as 2025-03-21.
The list of publicly reported terminations is likely still far from complete. Grant Witness has reports of over 40 additional terminations reported by researchers that still do not appear in any official public site or list, also reported as far back as early March. Nor does the current list include many grants to Harvard University terminated last week. This suggests that even with this new batch, NIH and HHS’s public reporting is not up to date, and the full scope of terminated grants is unreported and will grow.
Approximately 500 terminations were added to NIH’s RePORTER database on Sunday May 18, then more were also published to the HHS TAGGS website today. As has been the case previously, the two sources have significant discrepancies, with approximately 300 terminated grants only published in one of the two sources. In the past three weeks, HHS had stopped posting new terminations to the TAGGS list, actually removing some.
Terminations in the RePORTER database are not searchable and not included in the site’s programmatic API. Grant Witness tracks this designation by regular scraping of the RePORTER website.
These new terminations also do not appear to have been part of releases on doge.gov. DOGE’s website claims that 1,951 grants have been cancelled across all of HHS, totaling $47 billion in value, but provides no details or reference numbers beyond the recipient institution, which is also missing in many cases. Nonetheless, more grants to Harvard, UC San Francisco, and other institutions appear in the new RePORTER terminations than are listed by DOGE.
Institutions
The newly identified terminations affect 243 institutions across 48 states. While Harvard Medical School accounts for the highest number of grant cancellations in this batch, the new RePORTER data do not seem to reflect the huge wave of terminations that occurred last week.
| Institution | Terminated Grants | Grants Value |
|---|---|---|
| HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL | 19 | $42,314,991 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO | 17 | $94,524,021 |
| UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER | 14 | $24,247,811 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | 13 | $28,434,968 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS | 13 | $20,174,996 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO | 13 | $60,527,311 |
| UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL | 12 | $25,753,932 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR | 12 | $27,326,433 |
| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA | 12 | $39,915,358 |
| YALE UNIVERSITY | 12 | $17,846,082 |
Top 10 institutions of new grant terminations
Topics
Most terminations were of R01 research projects, which make up most of NIH grants, followed by a variety of education and training activities. The largest number of terminations were under the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, but the greatest amount of grant funding terminated was from the National Institute of Mental Health.
| Activity Code | Activity | Terminated Grants | Grants Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| R01 | Research Project | 322 | $789,570,438 |
| R25 | Education Projects | 79 | $152,339,664 |
| F31 | Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award | 75 | $5,089,764 |
| T34 | Undergraduate NRSA Institutional Research Training Grants | 58 | $45,889,490 |
| T32 | Institutional National Research Service Award | 38 | $43,152,674 |
| R21 | Exploratory/Developmental Grants | 25 | $10,370,997 |
| U01 | Research Project–Cooperative Agreements | 23 | $114,494,294 |
| K99 | Career Transition Award | 16 | $2,700,546 |
| R00 | Research Transition Award | 10 | $5,519,629 |
| DP2 | NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards | 9 | $15,040,138 |
Top 10 activity codes of the new grant terminations
| Institute Abbr. | Institute Name | Terminated Grants | Grants Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| NIGMS | National Institute of General Medical Sciences | 134 | $189,738,732 |
| NIAID | National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases | 113 | $353,069,476 |
| NIDDK | National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases | 113 | $138,140,064 |
| NIMH | National Institute of Mental Health | 89 | $400,221,333 |
| NIMHD | National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities | 67 | $158,797,845 |
| NIDA | National Institute on Drug Abuse | 47 | $128,396,607 |
| NIA | National Institute on Aging | 31 | $72,760,293 |
| NIBIB | National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering | 27 | $23,179,399 |
| NHGRI | National Human Genome Research Institute | 21 | $41,005,076 |
| NCI | National Cancer Institute | 18 | $73,286,545 |
Top 10 NIH institutes of new grant terminations
Examining programs[1] under which these grants are funded paints a clearer picture of the topics targeted for terminations. The largest group of terminations, by number and value, were research supplements to promote diversity, a program that was not only ended but deleted off the NIH website. (You can find it on the Internet Archive.) 191 such supplements with a value of $770 million were terminated. Many other terminated projects were funded under programs for science education, training, early-career support, and other programs focused on diversity and studying health disparities.
| Funding Opportunity Numbers | Program Title | Terminated Grants | Grants Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| PA-23-189, PA-21-071, PA-20-222 | Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research | 191 | $768,214,323 |
| PA-20-185, PA-19-056, PA-20-184, PA-20-183 | Research Project Grant | 109 | $290,364,678 |
| PA-21-049, PA-20-251, PA-23-271, PA-21-052 | Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award | 76 | $5,232,698 |
| PAR-19-218, PAR-21-146 | Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement | 58 | $45,889,490 |
| PAR-24-031, PAR-19-037, PAR-21-025 | Initiative for Maximizing Student Development | 38 | $43,152,674 |
| PAR-22-220, PAR-20-066 | Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program | 29 | $97,054,509 |
| PAR-21-271, PAR-21-272, PAR-19-343 | Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers | 22 | $5,529,685 |
| PAR-22-241 | NIAID Research Opportunities for New and “At-Risk” Investigators to Promote Workforce Diversity | 21 | $21,601,155 |
| PAR-21-313 | Small Grants for New Investigators to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research | 18 | $7,200,840 |
| PAR-23-114, PAR-20-223 | Enhancing Science, Technology, EnginEering, and Math Educational Diversity | 12 | $6,550,142 |
Top 10 funding programs of new grant terminations
Nonetheless, the actual topics of research and study of these terminated projects covered a wide range of basic and applied biomedical topics. A word cloud of the most frequent words in project titles and abstracts shows the scientific range of these projects.
Notes
- We now report funding program titles in the database under the field
foa_title.