Tuesday 30 December 2025 – 10:28 AM
The administration of US President Donald Trump agreed Trump According to Reuters, requests for scientific research grants that had been halted or rejected by the National Institutes of Health were reviewed.
Trump backs down under judicial pressure… and reopens the controversial scientific research grants file in America
The Trump administration said it had reached an agreement with plaintiffs to review grant applications that were stalled or withdrawn during the period of the legal dispute, without including a direct commitment to fund any specific research project.
A federal judge in Boston had previously ruled that the National Institutes of Health illegally canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants, due to their alleged connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, considering that the decision violates the laws regulating federal funding.
Last August, the US Supreme Court suspended part of this ruling, and decided to refer disputes related to canceled grants to a court specializing in financial disputes with the government, while leaving unresolved another issue related to how institutes will deal with future funding requests.
The recent agreement contributed to resolving part of the dispute, as the government agreed to conduct new reviews of grant applications that were frozen, rejected, or withdrawn following the announcement of the new policy, while emphasizing that this does not necessarily mean agreeing to fund this research.
Researchers involved in the lawsuit said that these grants are intended to support important public health issues, including HIV prevention, Alzheimer’s disease research, LGBT health, and combating sexual violence.
Nikki Mavis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New Mexico, explained that the agreement gives her grant application and other applications the opportunity to return to the evaluation process after a freeze that she described as arbitrary and destructive.
For its part, the US Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that it will continue to appeal the previous judicial ruling, stressing its commitment to ending funding for research that it believes gives priority to ideological agendas at the expense of scientific accuracy and tangible results.
