I Wrote Research Funding Announcements for NIH for 22 Years. This Year They’ve Published 14 [Elizabeth Ginexi, Formerly an NIH Program Official for 22 years]- “For decades, the National Institutes of Health published between 650 and 850 Notices of Funding Opportunities each year. These announcements tell the research community which diseases need study, which populations are underserved, which scientific gaps need filling. They are how NIH directs resources toward problems that won’t get solved by waiting for whatever grant applications happen to arrive.
- In 2024, NIH published 756 funding announcements.
- In 2025, it published 120.
- In 2026, as of March 15, it has published 14.
I spent 22 years as a program official at NIH writing these announcements. I know what they accomplish and what happens when they disappear. This essay is about what the data reveals and what it means for every disease, every research area, and every population that depends on NIH-funded research.
Figure 1. NIH NOFOs Published Over Time
What Research Funding Announcements Actually Do – A Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is how NIH tells researchers what the agency needs. It specifies a research problem, explains why it matters, describes the approach NIH is looking for, and sets aside dedicated funding to solve it.
NOFOs exist because not all research needs are obvious to individual investigators. When a new pathogen emerges. When clinical trials reveal an unexpected side effect that needs investigation. When one population experiences a disease at higher rates than others but nobody knows why. When a promising scientific approach exists but no one is applying it to a specific problem. These are moments when waiting for unsolicited grant applications is not enough.
Writing a NOFO was one of my primary responsibilities as a program official. When my institute identified a gap, I would work with scientific experts to define the problem precisely, determine what kind of research was needed, and draft an announcement that would attract the right investigators. The announcement would be reviewed by our advisory council, posted publicly, and researchers across the country would know: NIH has identified this as a priority and has set aside funding to address it. This is scientific stewardship. It is not top-down control of what researchers can study. Investigators can always submit unsolicited proposals on any topic within an institute’s mission. But NOFOs allow program staff to actively direct resources toward problems that need attention rather than passively waiting to see what applications arrive. And then it stopped…”
See also Inside Higher Education: How DOGE Gutted the NEH in 22 Days – Internal documents show how leadership at the National Endowment for the Humanities handed over the grant termination process to DOGE and ChatGPT.
