How has research funding changed since January 2025?

Most university-based scientists in a representative sample reported funder dollars holding steady or declining. Some reported an increase in funding directly from their home institutions, probably in the form of stopgap emergency funding.

Survey question: "Since January 2025, has the dollar amount of research support you receive from the following sources increased, decreased or remained about the same?"

The survey was conducted November 2025 through January 2026. A sample of 1,352 panel members were invited to participate, of whom 280 completed online questionnaires. These scientists were sampled at random from 131 R1 universities. All findings weighted by gender, academic rank and academic field and have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.9 percentage points.
Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-NDSource: SciOPSGet the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper