Determine whether the underlying research changed after summary edits

Determine whether the research conducted by NIH-funded projects changed when their award summaries were edited during the 2025 review process, rather than only the textual account of that research changing.

Background

The study finds that NIH award summaries were edited while funding continued and that the Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization system consequently dropped projects from the minority-health count. Independent practice records, such as trial registrations and article indexing, provide partial evidence about ongoing work, but the authors state that the edited public record cannot establish whether the underlying research itself changed.

References

The count followed the edited text, and the edited record cannot say whether the research changed with it.

— Still funded, no longer counted: how NIH's 2025 award reviews changed what the government counts as minority health research  (2610.03443 - Xie et al., 2 Oct 2026) in Abstract; Section 6, “What the record can no longer show”

Effects on what is proposed, whom studies enroll, and who is trained take years to appear, and these data cannot show whether the reviews changed them.

— Still funded, no longer counted: how NIH's 2025 award reviews changed what the government counts as minority health research  (2610.03443 - Xie et al., 2 Oct 2026) in Section 7, “Limitations and future research”