Welcome to 2026!?
There is a truly overwhelming amount of news this week but, on the science and education front, the biggest is some substantial progress in funding the government past January. We’re still waiting on news about HHS (including NIH, CDC, etc), so far congress appears to be passing much less restrictive cuts than were proposed last year.
Today’s cover image comes from the Giorgio Moroder recut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). It’s available on Kanopy if you’ve got a library card and Youtube if you don’t mind ads for raw milk or whatever.
Federal Research Policy
The House passed a “minibus” of three appropriation bills this week. The Senate is expected to vote next week.
The package includes small decreases in funding for NSF (3.4%) and NASA (1.1%) and small increase at DOE’s Office of Science (2%).
Included in this bill is language preventing these agencies from imposing the types of indirect cost caps seen early last year. They must instead use their 2024 rates.
I believe this allows the covered agencies to restart their contributions to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, both of which have been on hold since their funding lapsed.
There is also language requesting a briefing on the degree to which the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is repealing the public access mandates that went into effect late last year.
Appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services, including NIH, are still being negotiated. I wasn’t able to find any concrete news on progress on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) bill this week.
On Monday, a Federal court upheld a prior ruling that blocked NIH from capping indirect cost rates at 15%. Stat has additional coverage.
Last week, the NIH agreed in a lawsuit settlement to review “in good faith” applications that were frozen, denied, and withdrawn last year due to Administration priorities.
This is the latest in a series of related legal decisions. Thousands of grants were restored in June, for example.
However, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stated in a recent interview that the awards restored In June will not be renewed in 2026. Stat has the details.
With the dismissal of Walter Koroshetz as director of NINDS, 14 of NIH’s 27 institutes and centers will soon be under interim leadership.
The President signed a memorandum on Wednesday withdrawing the United States from over 50 international initiatives. Most of these are UN agencies and most are focused on climate change.
Public Health
HHS has unveiled a new upside down food pyramid this week. To this decidedly non expert, it seems to basically be this 1963 Life Cereal commercial. NPR and others have coverage.
In line with December’s Presidential memo, the CDC announced on Monday that has reduced the number of vaccines recommended for children.
The NYT has coverage, the CDC has released a fact sheet, and the updated recommended vaccine schedule can be found here.
California and other members of the West Coast Health Alliance stated on Tuesday that they will continue to recommend the previous schedule.
The Federal subsidies for the Affordable Care Act - which were central to last year’s shutdown - have now expired. Yesterday, the House passed a bill to extend the subsidies for three years, but it is unlikely to pass the Senate.
Higher Education
The University of South Dakota has become the latest to adopt post-tenure review.
The Department of Education has announced that it will investigate Brown University for potential violations of the Cleary Act, which requires institutions to meet certain security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid funds.
Brown reached an agreement with the Administration back in July to restore an estimated $500 million in frozen research grant funding.
Also…
Fun fact: Greenland has a single university, Ilisimatusarfik (aka Grønlands Universitet aka University of Greenland), located in the capital city of Nuuk. Turns out, most Greenlanders go to university in Denmark.