Tracking Science Spending

At a glance. Current award-making and spending pace at five major federal science agencies, compared to historical averages. Click an agency's card for temporal trends; and view detailed data, graphs, and metrics in the outcome-specific tabs above.

New Awards — newly issued competitive grants and renewals, excluding continuations.

All Awards — total grant obligations, including continuations and modifications.

Obligations — all spending commitments: grants, contracts, salaries, and facilities.

Percentages reflect cumulative dollar spending as a share of annual appropriations, compared to the historical average at the same point in the fiscal year. The New Awards, All Awards, and Obligations tabs above provide additional detail, including raw dollar amounts, award counts, and agency-level data.

What this tracks. This tab measures total obligation activity: binding commitments to spend federal funds, encompassing grants, contracts, salaries, continuations, and all other spending within each agency's research function. This is the broadest measure of agency spending, capturing every category of expenditure, not just grants. The data come from OMB's SF-133 Report on Budget Execution, reported monthly for each fiscal year. Obligation spending is normalized to each agency's appropriation, rather than compared in raw dollar terms or as a fraction of end-of-year totals. This accounts for year-to-year changes in agency budgets and for years in which agencies do not fully spend their appropriation.

Each line shows how an agency's current obligation rate compares to its historical average. A value of 0% means the agency is on pace; negative values mean it has obligated less than it typically would have by that point in the fiscal year.

Reading this chart: The 0% line means an agency is exactly on its historical pace. An agency at −20% has obligated 20% less than it normally would have by this point in the year. The dashed segment at the start of each line bridges from October, when the fiscal year begins and agencies are on pace by definition, to the first available data point.

Each agency's cumulative obligations over the fiscal year, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and a detailed spend-down chart for the selected agency, with current-year data plotted against the historical range.

What this tracks. This tab measures new competitive grant-making activity: newly issued awards and competing renewals, excluding non-competing continuations, modifications, and supplements. For NIH and NSF, data come from agency-specific APIs (NIH Reporter, NSF Awards). For DOE, NASA, and USDA, new award obligations are drawn from USASpending.gov. New grant spending is normalized to each agency's appropriation, rather than compared in raw dollar terms or as a fraction of end-of-year totals. This accounts for year-to-year changes in agency budgets and for years in which agencies do not fully spend their appropriation.

Each line shows how an agency's current award-making pace compares to its historical average. A value of 0% means the agency is on pace; negative values mean it has issued fewer new award dollars than it typically would have by that point in the fiscal year.

Reading this chart: The 0% line means an agency is exactly on its historical award-making pace. An agency at −50% has issued half the new award dollars it normally would have by this point in the fiscal year, as a share of its annual appropriation. The dashed segment at the start of each line bridges from October, when the fiscal year begins and agencies are on pace by definition, to the first available data point.

Individual Agency Trends — New Awards

Cumulative new awards over the fiscal year, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and a cumulative award chart for the selected agency, with current-year data plotted against the historical range.

What this tracks. This tab measures total grant obligation activity, including new awards, non-competing continuations, renewals, and modifications to existing grants. This isolates the grant component of agency spending—a substantial portion of which, in any given year, is continuing obligations on previously awarded grants. All data come from USASpending.gov, providing a consistent methodology across all five agencies. Grant spending is normalized to each agency's appropriation, rather than compared in raw dollar terms or as a fraction of end-of-year totals. This accounts for year-to-year changes in agency budgets and for years in which agencies do not fully spend their appropriation.

Each line shows how an agency's current total award-making pace compares to its historical average. A value of 0% means the agency is on pace; negative values mean it has issued fewer total award dollars than it typically would have by that point in the fiscal year.

Reading this chart: The 0% line means an agency is exactly on its historical total award-making pace. An agency at −50% has issued half the total award dollars it normally would have by this point in the fiscal year, as a share of its annual appropriation. The dashed segment at the start of each line bridges from October to the first available data point.

Individual Agency Trends — All Awards

Cumulative grant obligations over the fiscal year, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and a cumulative chart for the selected agency, including all award types.

Methodology. All figures are drawn from OMB SF-133 Reports on Budget Execution and Budgetary Resources, published by the Office of Management and Budget. These reports are generated from agency-reported data in the FACTS II system and represent the official record of federal budget execution.

Obligations are measured using Line 2190 (total new obligations & upward adjustments), filtered to unexpired accounts only. Expired-account adjustments (Line 2180) are excluded as they represent prior-year corrections rather than current-year spending activity.

Appropriations use Line 1100 (discretionary) + Line 1200 (mandatory)—the raw enacted appropriation figures rather than net totals (Lines 1160/1260). Net totals include CR preclusions (Line 1134), which can dramatically understate the full-year appropriation during a Continuing Resolution. Once a full-year appropriations bill is enacted, Line 1134 goes to zero and the raw and net figures converge.

Reporting cadence. SF-133 data is reported monthly for October through September of each fiscal year. Quarterly reports (December, March, June, September) are considered official; monthly reports are preliminary. This tracker uses all available periods for the most current picture.

Continuing Resolutions. During a Continuing Resolution, Line 1100 reflects the annualized prior-year rate. Obligation percentages may appear lower until a full-year bill is enacted, at which point Line 1134 preclusions go to zero and raw and net figures converge.

Agency filtering. Each tracked agency corresponds to specific Treasury Account Fund Symbols (TAFS) or bureau codes within department-level SF-133 files:

Agency	SF-133 Filter	Scope
NIH	Bureau: “National Institutes of Health,” excl. TRACCTs 3966, 4554, 838	Research institutes & OD (excl. Management Fund, Services & Supply, Buildings)
NSF	TRACCTs 100, 106	Research & Related Activities + STEM Education. TIP is budgeted within R&RA. H-1B fee-funded accounts (TRACCT 5176) are excluded because they have no corresponding appropriation on Lines 1100/1200.
DOE	TRACCT 222	Office of Science
NASA	TRACCT 120	Science Mission Directorate
USDA	TRACCTs 1400, 1500, 1502	Agricultural Research Service + National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Historical range. The shaded band on spend-down charts shows the minimum-to-maximum range across prior fiscal years (FY2016–FY2024). The dashed line shows the average. These provide context for whether current-year spending is within normal bounds. FY2016 and FY2017 data is available at non-quarterly months only (8 of 12 periods); the historical range at quarterly reporting periods uses FY2018 onward. FY2020 included emergency supplemental appropriations (CARES Act) that affected spending levels; this year is included in the historical baseline.

Dollar amounts. All dollar figures are nominal and not adjusted for inflation.

Obligation Time Series

Complete monthly obligation data underlying the spend-down charts. All dollar amounts are nominal.

Glossary

Appropriation: Budget authority enacted by Congress allowing an agency to incur obligations and make payments.
Obligation: A binding commitment to pay for goods, services, or other expenses—the primary measure of spending activity.
Outlay: Actual disbursement of funds from the Treasury. May lag behind obligations by months or years.
Budget Authority: Total authority to enter financial obligations, including appropriations, borrowing, and contract authority.
Continuing Resolution: Temporary funding at prior-year levels when full-year appropriations have not been enacted. During a CR, Line 1134 preclusions reduce net appropriation figures substantially.

Methodology. New award figures measure the pace of competitive grant-making: how many new grants are issued and how much new funding is committed each fiscal year. Data are drawn from agency-specific APIs and grant databases, filtered to new and competing-renewal grants, and normalized against discretionary appropriations to allow comparison across years and agencies.

Data sources. NIH and NSF data come from agency-specific APIs that provide daily, award-level records. DOE, NASA, and USDA data come from USASpending.gov, which provides monthly aggregates.

Agency filtering.

Agency	Source	Filter
NIH	NIH Reporter API	Type 1 (new) + Type 2 (competing renewal) extramural grants. Excludes subprojects, intramural research (activity codes starting with Z).
NSF	NSF Awards API	Awards by decision date in CFDA programs 47.041, .049, .050, .070, .074, .075, .076, .083, .084 (R&RA, STEM Education, TIP, Integrative Activities).
DOE	USASpending.gov	CFDA 81.049, award types 04/05, `new_awards_only` filter.
NASA	USASpending.gov	CFDA 43.001, 43.013, award types 04/05, `new_awards_only` filter.
USDA	USASpending.gov	CFDA 10.310, award types 04/05, `new_awards_only` filter.

Dollar amounts. NIH dollar amounts are the award amount reported by NIH Reporter. NSF dollar amounts represent the initial-year obligation extracted from the per-year funding breakdown in the NSF API; for standard grants, this equals the full award value, and for continuing grants, it is the first-year increment. A small proportion of NSF awards (~1%, stable across fiscal years) lack per-year obligation data and are included in award counts but excluded from dollar totals. USASpending amounts are monthly aggregated obligation dollars. All dollar figures are nominal and not adjusted for inflation.

Award counts. Individual award counts are available for NIH and NSF, which provide award-level records. USASpending reports monthly aggregates, so award counts are not available for DOE, NASA, or USDA.

Comparability. Each source approximates new competitive grant activity, but the administrative constructs differ. NIH distinguishes award types explicitly (Type 1, Type 2). NSF captures all awards by decision date. USASpending uses a new_awards_only filter that isolates initial obligations on newly created award records. These series are broadly comparable but not identical.

Historical range. The shaded band on charts shows the minimum-to-maximum range across available prior fiscal years; the dashed line shows the average. NIH and NSF baselines cover FY2016–2024. USASpending coverage begins later for some agencies: NASA from FY2017, USDA from FY2018, DOE from FY2019. Years with incomplete source coverage are automatically excluded. FY2025 and FY2026 are shown as individual lines and excluded from the historical band.

Normalization. Cumulative new award dollars are expressed as a percentage of the discretionary appropriation (SF-133 Line 1100) for the relevant research component. Mandatory appropriation (Line 1200) is excluded because competitive grants are funded from discretionary accounts. The overview chart divides the current value by the historical average at the same point in the fiscal year to produce the “vs. average pace” metric. Agencies whose average appropriation share is below 0.05% at a given point are excluded from the overview chart to avoid noisy ratios from small denominators.

Update cadence. NIH and NSF data are fetched from agency APIs; caches expire after 24 hours for the current fiscal year. USASpending data is also refreshed on a 24-hour cycle. Where the latest reporting period is partial, the final data point is shown provisionally.

New Award Time Series

Cumulative new award data underlying the charts. All dollar amounts are nominal.

Glossary

New Award (NIH): A Type 1 (new) or Type 2 (competing renewal) grant, as classified by NIH. Excludes non-competing continuations, supplements, and subprojects.
New Award (NSF): An award whose decision date falls within the fiscal year, deduplicated at the award level.
New Grant Obligation (USASpending): A project grant or cooperative agreement obligation classified as a new award by USASpending.gov, excluding modifications to existing awards.
Cumulative Dollars: Running total of new award dollars from the start of the fiscal year (October 1) through the latest available date.
% of Appropriation: Cumulative new award dollars divided by the agency’s full-year discretionary appropriation (SF-133 Line 1100).

Methodology. All-awards figures measure total grant obligation activity: new awards, non-competing continuations, renewals, and modifications to existing awards. This captures the full scope of grant funding flowing to the research community in a given fiscal year.

Data source. All five agencies use USASpending.gov as a unified data source, queried through the spending-over-time API. This provides consistent methodology across agencies. USASpending reports monthly aggregated obligation amounts; individual award counts are not available.

Date filter. Queries use the action_date date type, which captures all grant obligations where the action (new award, continuation, modification, or renewal) occurred during the fiscal year. This is broader than the new_awards_only filter used for new award tracking, which captures only initial obligations on newly created award records.

Award types. Queries are filtered to project grants (award type code 04) and cooperative agreements (award type code 05). Contracts, direct payments, and other non-grant instruments are excluded.

Agency filtering.

Agency	Filter
NIH	Awarding subtier agency: National Institutes of Health
NSF	CFDA 47.041, .049, .050, .070, .074, .075, .076, .083, .084
DOE Office of Science	CFDA 81.049
NASA Science	CFDA 43.001, 43.013
USDA (ARS + NIFA)	CFDA 10.310

Negative obligations. Because action_date captures all transaction types, including deobligations and downward adjustments on existing awards, cumulative totals may briefly go negative early in a fiscal year when adjustments to prior-year awards precede new obligation activity. Charts floor these values at zero for readability; the underlying data retains the actual values.

Historical range. The shaded band on charts shows the minimum-to-maximum range across available prior fiscal years; the dashed line shows the average. USASpending coverage begins in different years by agency: NIH and NSF from FY2016, NASA from FY2017, USDA from FY2018, DOE from FY2019. Years with incomplete source coverage are automatically excluded. FY2025 and FY2026 are shown as individual lines and excluded from the historical band.

Normalization. Cumulative grant obligation dollars are expressed as a percentage of the discretionary appropriation (SF-133 Line 1100) for the relevant research component. Mandatory appropriation (Line 1200) is excluded because competitive grants are funded from discretionary accounts. The overview chart divides the current value by the historical average at the same point in the fiscal year to produce the “vs. average pace” metric. Agencies whose average appropriation share is below 0.05% at a given point are excluded from the overview chart to avoid noisy ratios from small denominators.

Update cadence. USASpending data is refreshed on a 24-hour cycle for the current fiscal year. Where the latest reporting period is partial, the final data point is shown provisionally.

Dollar amounts. All dollar figures are nominal and not adjusted for inflation.

All Awards Time Series

Cumulative grant obligation data underlying the charts. All dollar amounts are nominal.

Glossary

Grant Obligation: A binding commitment to pay for a grant award, including new awards, continuations, renewals, and modifications. Recorded by USASpending.gov at the transaction level.
Action Date: The date on which a grant transaction (new award, modification, continuation, or renewal) was executed. Used to assign obligations to fiscal years.
Project Grant (Type 04): A federal grant providing direct financial assistance for a specific research project or activity.
Cooperative Agreement (Type 05): A federal award providing financial assistance where substantial federal involvement is anticipated during the project.
Cumulative Dollars: Running total of grant obligation dollars from the start of the fiscal year (October 1) through the latest available month.
% of Appropriation: Cumulative grant obligation dollars divided by the agency’s full-year discretionary appropriation (SF-133 Line 1100).

Experimental comparison. This tab shows the same agencies using USASpending.gov as a unified data source for all five, instead of the agency-specific APIs (NIH Reporter, NSF Awards) used on the New Awards tab. This allows comparison of data source effects. USASpending uses the new_awards_only filter, which captures initial obligations on new award records and excludes non-competing continuations. Dollar amounts may differ from the agency APIs due to differences in how transactions are aggregated.

Each line shows an agency's current award-making pace as a percentage of its historical average, using USASpending data.

Individual Agency Trends — USASpending

Cumulative new award obligations from USASpending, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and cumulative chart using USASpending as the data source.