APA Services urges Congress to finalize the National Institutes of Health funding by year’s end

APA Services joined nearly 400 organizations in endorsing an Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research letter urging congressional leadership and appropriations leaders to finalize robust fiscal year (FY) 2027 funding for NIH before the end of the calendar year. The letter links timely, predictable funding to scientific progress, institutional stability, national competitiveness, and patients’ access to future treatments.

The letter warns that uncertain award schedules can delay discovery research, equipment purchases, clinical studies, staffing decisions, and patient enrollment. These delays also create difficulties for trainees and early-career investigators. Even modest delays may slow scientific breakthroughs and the development of new preventive strategies, diagnostics, and treatments.

The letter also highlights instability in FY 2025 and FY 2026, when uncertainty disrupted NIH operations and reduced the time available to issue awards. Those disruptions compounded challenges for laboratories and the future scientific workforce.

Signatories asked Congress to protect appropriated research funding from policies that could terminate grants, add political reviews, alter interagency arrangements, or revise the Uniform Guidance (see APA Services public comments (PDF, 247KB)opens in new window). They also support:

• building on FY 2026 provisions on forward funding for multiyear awards and on research infrastructure; and
• maintaining the continuing resolution’s pause on proposed Uniform Guidance revisions.

Meanwhile, bipartisan Senate appropriators are reportedly drafting language for FY 2027 appropriations bills to protect NIH grantmaking from political interference. Led by Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Washington), lawmakers say safeguards are needed to preserve the integrity and independence of federally funded medical research.

Collins noted that the recent continuing resolution included similar protections. She said lawmakers could incorporate them into full-year funding legislation before current funding expires on December 11.

Separately, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is pursuing comparable language in the Interior-Environment bill to shield environmental research grants from political influence.

APA Services is monitoring these developments and working with Congress and key stakeholders to protect the integrity of the federal research enterprise. We remain committed to research funding decisions guided by scientific merit and public health priorities.

For more information, email Angela L. Sharpe.