The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to issue a new executive order that would give the White House direct authority over the allocation of billions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in a move that would increase oversight of biomedical research funding.
According to the information provided, a tense meeting was held Friday to discuss a directive that would establish a new external committee with veto power over funding decisions under a broad biomedical research program if proposed projects conflict with policies adopted by the Trump administration.
The proposed order would create a committee comprising Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. The committee would be required to make decisions unanimously, effectively giving Vought the ability to block any research project that does not receive his approval.
Dispute Over Harvard Funding
The move followed a disagreement during Friday’s meeting, when Bhattacharya rejected a request from Trump to halt NIH funding allocated to Harvard University, amid previous disputes related to the university’s handling of campus protests over the war in Gaza.
The Trump administration had previously sought to freeze approximately $2.6 billion in funding allocated to Harvard before a federal judge ordered the funding to resume.
The proposed executive order comes amid restrictions imposed by Congress on the Office of Management and Budget. The latest temporary funding bill included a provision barring the implementation of similar plans until mid-December following objections from senators in both parties.
Changes to Research Funding Reviews
The proposed system would replace the “dual-review” process that has been in place for decades, under which independent expert panels conduct scientific evaluations before funding decisions are made.
Under the proposed mechanism, a political element would be introduced after the scientific evaluation stage, potentially raising concerns about the influence of political considerations on researchers’ choices of study and research topics.
The National Institutes of Health has said it continues to fund biomedical research and that no grants have been canceled at this time. If signed, the executive order is expected to face legal challenges, similar to previous efforts to reduce research funding.
