Federal funding delays threaten scientific research

Delays in federal health research funding are drawing scrutiny from Kansas leaders.

By

State News

June 4, 2026 - 3:49 PM

University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod, shown here giving a speech in 2025, is questioning why the National Institutes of Health isn’t paying out research dollars already awarded by Congress. Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — A Kansas healthcare leader and a U.S. Representative are questioning why funding needed to continue essential scientific research isn’t being paid out.

“More than halfway through fiscal 2026, the National Institutes of Health has allocated only 33% of the $26 billion it normally awards to universities,” wrote University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod with Ron Daniels, Johns Hopkins University president, in a Wall Street Journal column in May.

Democrat Rep. Sharice Davids teamed with 38 national legislators to ask Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of…

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