In September 2024, Rahima Benhabbour was awarded a $1.5 million MATRIX research grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop intravaginal rings for HIV prevention. Three months later, her laboratory received a stop work order from USAID; the agency would soon be dismantled and closed under the new Trump administration, canceling thousands of global health projects overnight. “We had to let go of one researcher and we can’t hire new graduate students for this project,” said Benhabbour, an Associate Professor at the joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University. “What breaks my heart the most is not being able to make offers to highly talented, extremely motivated, often first generation students because I don’t have enough guaranteed funding.”
USAID was one of the largest global funders for research on HIV prevention. Now, Benhabbour is hopeful that the “multipurpose” aspects of her technology– integrating HIV prevention with contraception or treatment for drug abuse– will be attractive to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Luckily, our focus is on a platform technology. What was slowed down by lost funding is now accelerating our work on new projects and diseases that are equally important like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer,” she explained. While studies with some collaborators were shut down, opportunities for new collaborations and funding appeared. In the end, she advised, “you have to have the ability to adapt.”
Hagar Labouta, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, agrees. She and a group of researchers across the US and Europe had been planning to apply for a large grant at the NIH. In 2024, Canadian researchers received over $40 million in NIH funding. In 2025, the Trump administration severely slowed operations at the NIH by laying off staff, changing policies on peer review and grant disbursement, and freezing funding on many existing projects. Additionally, new restrictions were placed on NIH funding to be sent to international partners. “We decided to go in other directions, specifically looking at team grants in Canada and Europe.” For her, adapting to the reality of scientific funding means accepting the instability at the NIH, shifting her collaboration strategy, and looking for new grant mechanisms.
Not everything is rosier on the other side of the Atlantic. The European Research Council, Europe’s most prestigious funder of basic research, has seen applications nearly double over the past few years, increasing the burden on peer reviewers and the competitiveness of each funding opportunity. “Everything is more competitive now,” said Ana Beloqui, Associate Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain, “and I have to be more cautious about where I put money into preliminary studies. I’ll have to devote more time to applying for grants.” For some of the grant panels she reviews, the percentage of success has
recently decreased considerably. In response, many European scientists are organizing for overhauls and substantial budget increases.
Across the globe, some countries have successfully increased their investments in science. “Taiwan’s economy has actually be performing quite well after the pandemic and recently, largely due to the growth of the AI and semiconductor industries, so overall government research support has not experienced major reductions,” wrote Yunching (Becky) Chen, Professor and Chair of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at National Tsing-Hua University. Researchers in India have also experienced a funding boon including a recently- announced $1.2 billion biopharmaceutical initiative. “Over the last year, a lot of new calls for
proposals have gone up,” said Padma Devarajan, Professor at the SIES School of Pharmaceutic Sciences in Mumbai. “We have leapfrogged into laboratories of excellence. For researchers across the world, get in touch with Indian scientists and look for collaborative programs.”
No matter where in the world these researchers are, connecting with the CRS community has strengthened their careers and their outlook on the funding landscape. “Many of my collaborations were formed through CRS,” said Hagar, noting that these connections were especially useful in her early career as she built her scientific record. Similarly, Ana called CRS her “scientific family”. Padma recalled a particularly successful mentor-mentee connection through CRS that resulted in a new collaboration, funding, and publication. As a final piece of advice to all of us navigating funding challenges, Rahima shared: “Never give up and don’t get discouraged. Use these opportunities to pivot. It’s never an easy journey but when the wins come, you will cherish them more.”
