Attendees of a ‘Stand Up For Science’ rally in 2025 protest the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding. Credit: Sarah Yenesel/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The coming year could prove as unpredictable — and consequential — for US science as 2025 was.
In the tumultuous year since President Donald Trump returned to office last January, some of his administration’s actions — including firing thousands of government scientists, cancelling billions of dollars in grants and blocking funding for elite universities — have foundered. Many are tied up in the courts, and Trump’s proposals to slash federal science budgets are still pending before a sceptical US Congress. But some science-policy observers say that the administration’s efforts to overhaul the way science is conducted and funded by the federal government are just getting started.
Although the US Congress sets the budget for science spending, the Trump administration has “have aggressively set the table such that they have political control over pretty much all issues related to science”, says Wendy Wagner, a science-policy specialist at the University of Texas at Austin. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about this and other allegations in this article.
Here’s what US scientists and their global collaborators can expect in 2026.
Congressional support for science
The US Congress could finalize the federal budget for 2026 as early as this month, and science advocates are hopeful that the most extreme cuts sought by Trump will be avoided.
Last year, the administration proposed drastic reductions in science funding, such as a 57% cut to the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Legislation moving through the US Congress would reject most of those cuts. For example, last Thursday, the House of Representatives approved a budget bill rejecting Trump’s request to slash funding for the NSF and other agencies. The Senate still needs to approve the bill.
But the administration might try to block Congressionally approved research funding that does not align with its goals, as it did in 2025. For example, the administration has blocked funding allocated by Congress for diversity research and clean-energy development. The White House did not respond to Nature’s request for comment on this scenario.
Fresh ideas for overhead costs
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