The National Institutes of Health announced that 1,648 early-stage investigators received R01-equivalent extramural research grants in fiscal year 2026, the most ever recorded. The number represents a 25 percent increase over the ten-year average of 1,323 grants, the agency said.
NIH found that the average age of extramural researchers receiving their first principal investigator grant on an R01-equivalent award has risen from 38 years old in 1995 to 42 in 2025. The Trump administration has prioritized increasing funding opportunities for early-stage investigators.
The NIH also launched Generation Discovery, a new initiative to recruit 100 early-career principal investigators into the agency's Intramural Research Program over the next three years to pursue biomedical research.
The agency announced other initiatives aimed at strengthening biomedical science, including establishing its first metascience office to study and improve how scientific research is conducted, and launching R3PEATS (Rigor, Replicability, & Reproducibility to Promote Excellence, Accuracy, & Translation in Science) to improve research reliability. The NIH is advancing X-Labs in partnership with the National Science Foundation, a research model that brings together full-time interdisciplinary teams to pursue ambitious technical goals, and is leading the Bio-Genesis Mission to use artificial intelligence and advanced computational approaches to accelerate biomedical discovery.