The Leaky Pipeline in Science: NIH Funding Cuts Disproportionately Affect Women and Early-Career Researchers
Academics have long referred to their field as a leaky pipeline – gradually losing researchers from marginalized communities as they progress through their careers. A new study suggests that grant terminations from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the past year may have further widened this gap.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research indicates that women, particularly those early in their careers, were disproportionately affected by grant terminations, despite generally receiving less funding from the NIH overall. Women experienced a 57.9% termination rate of their grant funds, compared to 48.2% for men. Among doctoral students and assistant professors, 60% of terminated grants were led by women.
“This is a great paper that confirms what I have been hearing in the community. Young and female investigators disproportionately lost NIH funding,” said Donna Ginther, an economist at the University of Kansas who has studied the demographics of NIH funding, but was not involved in the new study. “It is disappointing to see that many of these grants were training grants that will have the impact of derailing scientific careers just as they are getting started.”
NIH Response and Ongoing Disparities
In response to the study, an NIH spokesperson stated that the agency allocated its full budget in 2025, providing funding to scientists at all stages of their careers who are performing high-impact science. The spokesperson emphasized a fair and objective review process based on scientific merit and highlighted the “Unified Funding Strategy,” implemented in December, which aims to expand opportunities for early-career researchers by broadening geographic distribution of funding and considering career stage and workforce needs.
However, gender disparities in NIH funding predate the current administration. Although the proportion of grants awarded to women has steadily increased over the past three decades, and women now comprise over half of training grant awardees, inequities persist. Women tend to receive less money than men, are less likely to hold multiple NIH grants simultaneously, and are underrepresented on study sections – the external peer review bodies that determine grant funding.
Intersectionality and Systemic Factors
The study’s findings suggest that funding shocks interact with existing structural features of the scientific system. Women and early-career researchers are more likely to hold smaller grants and be in earlier stages of projects when funding is cut, leading to greater disruption of their research.
“The main implication is that funding shocks do not affect all researchers equally, they interact with existing structural features of the system,” said Diego F. M. Oliveira, a professor at the University of North Dakota and an author of the paper. “In our data, women and early-career researchers were more likely to hold smaller grants and to be in earlier stages of those projects when funding was cut. That combination matters because it means a larger portion of their planned research activity was interrupted.”
The precarity of securing funding and operating on smaller budgets may also limit the ability of female principal investigators to pursue innovative research. Mytien Nguyen, an M.D.-Ph.D. Candidate at Yale University, noted that researchers with more secure funding have greater freedom to explore riskier, potentially groundbreaking ideas.
Disproportionate Impact on Researchers of Color
The data also reveals a significant drop in fellowship grants awarded to Black researchers in 2025. The NIH funded 205 such awards in 2024, but only 122 in 2025 – a 40% decrease. (Fellowship grants for white researchers also decreased, but by a smaller margin of 9%).
This decline may be linked to the research topics pursued by marginalized researchers, which may be more susceptible to being labeled as “woke” or politically sensitive. Research suggests that Black applicants tend to propose research on population health, which is often funded less frequently than basic science. The administration has targeted programs designed to diversify the sciences, including terminating 405 F31 awards, which are intended to fund doctoral students from diverse backgrounds.
Jahn Jaramillo, a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Miami whose own grant was terminated despite receiving a perfect peer review score, highlighted the emotional toll of these funding cuts. His research focused on HIV in the Latino immigrant community, a topic aligned with the administration’s stated goal of ending the HIV epidemic. However, the termination of his grant disrupted his research and strained relationships with the community he was working to serve.
“You’re getting mixed signals as to what you represent, and the kind of work that you should be doing,” Jaramillo said. “You’re disappointing them, you’re confusing them. That has long-term impacts with regards to them trusting research.”
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