On July 23, 2025, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced that for fiscal year 2025 it will not establish a specific RO1 payline for applications not yet awarded, and it expects to fund only those applications that score in the top 4% in FY25 because of budget reductions and a new policy requiring that at least one-half of remaining research project grant (RPG) funds be awarded upfront. For context, NCI funded all applications through the top 10% in FY24.

President Donald Trump has proposed continuing this upfront funding policy into FY26, which could significantly reduce the number of new RPGs awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) even if the overall funding level for NIH remains flat.

In Congress, the Senate Appropriations Committee has scheduled a markup of its FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) funding bill for July 31 while the House has postponed marking up its version of the Labor-HSS bill until September.