The executive branch has attempted to terminate more than 7,000 grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation — the primary federal funders of biomedical and science-and-engineering research — with a collective value exceeding $3 billion, according to Grant Witness, a tracker of grant terminations under the Trump administration. The figure gives research managers the sharpest quantification yet of the disruption set in motion by the White House's first-week directive ordering a "temporary pause" on billions in congressionally approved funding.

Federal courts have temporarily blocked the categorical freeze, ruling that presidents cannot arbitrarily halt funding Congress has already appropriated, and on March 16, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit largely upheld an order preventing the administration from freezing federal funds. Some money has been restored for now. The uncertainty remains, and it now has a budget line attached: the administration has proposed $44 billion in cuts to research and development funding for the coming fiscal year, according to AAAS estimates.

For laboratory leaders, the practical fallout is already concrete. Arati Prabhakar — who served as President Biden's chief advisor for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and previously led DARPA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology — filed a friend-of-the-court brief in New York v. Trump, one of the lawsuits challenging the freeze. She lists specific casualties in an interview with the Brennan Center for Justice: clinical trials for cancer patients stopped, satellite missions and climate centers defunded, and under-resourced local health departments missing deadly foodborne illnesses.

"When we stop federal investments in research and development, we're forfeiting our future," Prabhakar said.

Her brief argues that stable federal funding, protected by the rule of law, underpins American scientific leadership and the security, health, and prosperity of Americans generally. The First Circuit heard oral argument in the case on November 18.

Prabhakar's historical case rests on a familiar R&D management lesson: multi-decade, multi-sector commitments. She points to GPS, which began when U.S. radio engineers tried to track Sputnik after the Soviet launch in 1957. The insight that locating a satellite in space could locate a receiver on Earth took university researchers, government laboratories, the Department of Defense, the White House, entrepreneurs and private businesses to reach the blue dot on a smartphone. That 80-year-old federal research enterprise, she notes, has historically been sustained by bipartisan commitment — a framework now under strain.

The most decision-relevant question for corporate and institutional portfolio planners is whether private capital can absorb the gap. Prabhakar's answer is unambiguous: "Flat-out no." The private sector funds R&D tied to products, services, profits and growth. Basic research is not profitable for individual companies, though it is vital to industries and the economy, and companies do not conduct research for public purposes such as understanding environmental harms. That is where federal funding functions as non-substitutable infrastructure.

Prabhakar, who holds a PhD in applied physics and spent more than a decade in venture capital and as a company executive, does not defend the system as flawless. "Federally funded research and development is not perfect, but it's indispensable," she said. Her tenure in public service, she said, was aimed at directing the country's research capability at major future challenges; progress has not only stalled — "much is being destroyed."

For R&D managers, the numbers frame the planning horizon: $3 billion in terminated grants already, a proposed $44 billion reduction ahead, and judicial relief that is temporary and contested. Prabhakar's recommended actions — litigation, amicus participation, outreach to Congress — signal that the resolution will come through legal and legislative channels rather than administrative reversal. The First Circuit's March 2026 ruling preserved funding for now, but the underlying dispute over executive authority to freeze appropriated funds remains on a path toward further appeal.