The White House has directed HHS and NIH, along with every other federal department and agency, to realign fiscal 2028 research and development budgets around nine priority areas, including AI and foundational biological sciences.
The order applies governmentwide, not just to health agencies, but its guidance on foundational biological sciences and AI carries the most direct stakes for NIH and the broader biomedical research pipeline hospitals and health systems depend on.
The July 21 memo accompanies a broader Office of Science and Technology Policy report, “Science: A New Golden Age,” which Director Michael Kratsios called the first comprehensive rewrite of U.S. science policy in more than 80 years. He said the plan positions the country to lead the AI-driven scientific revolution that will define the next century.
Agencies with broad life-sciences missions, including NIH, are told to prioritize foundational research in the biological sciences over the wider “life sciences” category, and to treat the Genesis Mission — the AI-for-science initiative President Trump launched in November 2025 to double U.S. research productivity within a decade — as a central budget priority.
The memo also pushes agencies toward longer research grants of five years or more, citing the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award as a model, and toward faster, lower-friction “fast grants” for exploratory work.
Every federal agency with at least $3 billion in fiscal year 2026 R&D budget authority must submit a plan to Mr. Kratsios and Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, within 90 days detailing how it will implement the memo’s funding-mechanism and talent reforms.
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