NIH Director Statements Highlight Foreign Collaborations and Academic Freedom

By: Yvette Seger
Thursday, September 11, 2025
During the last week of August, Jayanta Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issued two statements pertaining to the agency’s ongoing efforts related to safeguarding foreign collaborations and fostering an environment in which NIH scientists are encouraged to challenge the status quo.

The August 25 statement on “Maximizing and Safeguarding NIH’s Investment in Foreign Collaborations” builds upon NIH’s announcement in May that it would restructure the process for foreign subawards on NIH grant awards, set to go into effect by the start of Fiscal Year 2026 on October 1. The statement conveys two core principles for foreign collaborations supported by NIH:

1. All research supported at international sites should have a clear scientific rationale to be conducted outside the U.S., and
2. All research supported at international sites should have direct potential to generate knowledge applicable to understanding, improving, or protecting the health of Americans.

Later that same week, Dr. Bhattacharya announced that NIH would be adopting an agency-wide framework that embeds principles of academic freedom for scientists within NIH’s intramural research program. Additional information about the framework has not yet been released.