This dashboard maps autism research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from FY2024 to FY2026 to 12 priority domains outlined in the Autism CARES Act of 2024, the primary federal law guiding autism research priorities and funding in the United States.
It also provides information on how these studies were originally classified using the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) Strategic Plan Portfolio Analysis, a framework that has historically been used to understand federal autism research funding allocation.
We hope that this tool will increase transparency around federal autism research funding and provide policymakers, researchers and advocates with a clearer, data-driven view of how research investments align with national priorities in the Autism CARES Act. The goal is to support more informed decisions about future funding and better alignment with the needs of the autism community.
The most robust analysis is provided below for FY2024, the last complete fiscal year before the CARES Act was reauthorized. Preliminary data from FY2025 and FY2026 are also included, with additional interpretation notes provided on each tab. Additional methodological details are available in the Methods tab.
Note: NIH is the largest single funder of autism research, accounting for over 80% of federal autism research funding. As a result, its portfolio represents the majority of federal investment in autism research.
However, several CARES Act domains are funded primarily by other federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Education (ED). What you see here is the NIH piece of a larger federal picture.
Only partially. NIH invests heavily in foundational science, but the CARES Act's priorities are broader than the current portfolio.
1. Science dominates the NIH autism portfolio. Under the IACC framework, where each study is assigned to only one category, Biology and Genetic & Environmental Factors account for 58% of FY2024 funding. Several other CARES priorities, including services, workforce training, safety, and caregiver support, receive much smaller shares.
2. That pattern holds even under the CARES Act framework. When categorizing studies into CARES Act priority areas, where each study may fall into multiple domains, foundational research receives 80% of funding. The broader framework reveals more overlap with applied areas such as co-occurring conditions, lifespan, and communication, but the majority of funding remains concentrated in basic science.
3. This reflects a long-standing pattern. Prior IACC analyses have shown that research focused on biology and genetics have long received the largest share of research funding compared to other categories. This analysis shows that this trend continues from 2024 to 2026, with other priority areas accounting for smaller proportions of the portfolio.
The chart below shows the IACC single-category baseline. The CARES domain bars that follow show how that same portfolio looks under the broader multi-label statutory lens.
The chart below uses the established IACC single-category approach, where each grant is assigned to exactly one of seven categories and the shares sum to 100%. We grouped the two science-focused categories (Biology and Genetic & Environmental Factors) against the five applied and infrastructure categories. FY2024 is the most recent complete fiscal year and captures the NIH portfolio just before Congress signed the CARES Act into law. We also reconstructed the IACC's published FY2019 and FY2020 classifications using NIH RePORTER data and benchmarked our results against theirs. That comparison is in the Methods tab.
The IACC framework predates the Autism CARES Act of 2024. Congress wrote the CARES Act with a broader set of priorities that span foundational science, services, workforce, safety, lifespan, and more. To measure how the NIH portfolio aligns with those priorities, we organized the Act's statutory language into 12 domains, drawing primarily from Section 409C of the PHSA (42 U.S.C. § 284g) and related provisions across Sections 399AA through 399DD (42 U.S.C. §§ 280i through 280i‑3).
The CARES Act domains overlap by design. A grant studying seizures in autistic adults addresses foundational research, co-occurring conditions, and lifespan at the same time. A single-label approach forces a choice among those. The multi-label approach used here tags the grant to all three, giving a fuller picture of what NIH funds relative to what the Act prioritizes. Because grants can appear in more than one domain, shares sum to more than 100%. Bars are ranked by funding amount.
Multi-label classification matters most where the single-category view is least informative: inside the largest IACC bucket. Under its single-label rules, the IACC framework classified 266 FY2024 grants as Biology. The CARES Act lens applied to those same grants tells a different story. Nearly half also address co-occurring conditions. One in five touches communication. Others span lifespan, screening, and interventions. Seventy-five percent of Biology grants touch at least two CARES Act domains. The chart below shows the breakdown.
The stacked bars below show the same 12 CARES domains with color segments showing how grants in each domain were originally classified under the IACC's seven categories. This crosswalk connects the new statutory lens back to the established portfolio analysis and shows where the two frameworks overlap.
The concentration in foundational research reflects NIH's core mission in basic biomedical science — and it is not new. This pattern has been consistent across every year tracked in this analysis, from FY2019 through FY2024, predating the current administration and spanning multiple Congresses. The IACC's own published portfolio analyses document the same concentration going back years. This is a structural feature of how federal autism research has been funded, not a recent shift.
The Autism CARES Act of 2024 sets a broader mandate. Its priorities — services, lifespan, caregiver support, safety, workforce, and more — have received comparatively thin NIH investment across this entire period. Addressing that gap requires action on two fronts. First, NIH institutes beyond NIMH — including those focused on aging, diabetes, stroke, and other conditions that co-occur with autism — could substantially increase their autism-relevant funding without displacing existing priorities. Second, several CARES Act domains are more naturally addressed by other federal agencies: CDC for surveillance, HRSA for workforce training, ACL for adult services, and DOD for applied research. NIH funds approximately 68% of federal autism research, but the remaining 32% — and where it flows — matters significantly for whether the Act's full range of priorities is being met.
This analysis covers NIH only. It does not capture federal investment in domains like services, surveillance, safety, and workforce that other agencies fund substantially. A full picture of federal alignment with the CARES Act requires expanding this analysis beyond NIH — which future iterations of this dashboard will do.
We reconstructed the classification approach from the most recent published IACC Portfolio Analysis (FY2019-2020) using NIH RePORTER data and AI-assisted coding. Using the same seven Strategic Plan questions, we classified each grant to a single IACC category and benchmarked the results against the published IACC analysis. Our results tracked within a few percentage points of the published benchmarks in both years, with the intervention boundary being the main source of deviation. That is close enough to support directional interpretation of the portfolio and confirms the AI-assisted approach produces results consistent with the prior expert-reviewed federal portfolio analysis.
| IACC Question | IACC FY2019 | NIH RePORTER FY2019 | IACC FY2020 | NIH RePORTER FY2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 Screening & Diagnosis | 5.4% | 5.3% | 7.1% | 6.2% |
| Q2 Biology | 45.3% | 41.6% | 45.4% | 43.8% |
| Q3 Genetic & Environmental Factors | 19.3% | 17.8% | 17.5% | 17.0% |
| Q4 Interventions | 11.1% | 12.5% | 8.6% | 13.1% |
| Q5 Services & Supports | 4.9% | 8.7% | 8.4% | 7.1% |
| Q6 Lifespan | 4.3% | 3.6% | 4.3% | 4.1% |
| Q7 Infrastructure & Prevalence | 9.8% | 10.5% | 8.7% | 8.7% |
The Autism CARES Act of 2024 (P.L. 118-180) identifies priority domains but does not provide a grant-level coding scheme. We created a 12-domain multi-label framework drawn from the statutory language across multiple sections of the Public Health Service Act as amended by P.L. 118‑180, primarily Section 409C (42 U.S.C. § 284g) governing NIH research activities, along with Sections 399AA through 399DD (42 U.S.C. §§ 280i through 280i‑3) governing surveillance, education, the IACC, and reporting. Unlike the IACC single-label approach, where each grant goes into one category, the CARES framework tags a single grant for multiple domains when the text supports it. A grant studying seizures in autistic adults, for example, counts under both Co-occurring Conditions and Lifespan.
Basic science research on the biological and genetic basis of autism
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(A): “expand, intensify, and coordinate...research on autism spectrum disorder, including basic and clinical research...in fields, such as pathology, developmental neurobiology, genetics, epigenetics, pharmacology, nutrition, immunology, neuroimmunology, neurobehavioral development, endocrinology, gastroenterology, toxicology”
Research on medical and psychiatric conditions that frequently co-occur with autism
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B): “treatment of autism spectrum disorder and co-occurring conditions...including those individuals with co-occurring conditions”
Behavioral, medical, and therapeutic interventions for autistic individuals
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1): “interventions to maximize outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorder...intervention, and treatment of autism spectrum disorder and co-occurring conditions, including dissemination and implementation of clinical care, supports, interventions, and treatments”
Speech, language, and alternative communication methods
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1); see also P.L. 118‑180, Sec. 4: “fields...such as...neurobehavioral development...supports, interventions, and treatments”; Sec. 4 provides for “access to evidence-based services, tools, and technologies that support communication needs”
Early identification tools and diagnostic methods
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(i): “investigates the causes...diagnosis or ruling out, early and ongoing detection”
Research across childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and aging
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1): “services and supports across the lifespan...reflects the entire population of individuals with autism spectrum disorder...fields...such as...gerontology”
Population-level monitoring and epidemiological research
42 U.S.C. § 280i(a) (PHSA § 399AA): surveillance and research on “the number, incidence, correlates, and causes of autism spectrum disorder”; see also 42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(i): “early and ongoing detection, prevention”
Educational, vocational, residential, and support services
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(i): “services and supports across the lifespan...dissemination and implementation of clinical care, supports, interventions, and treatments”
Research and services for underrepresented and linguistically diverse communities
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(iii): “reflects the entire population of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, including those individuals with co-occurring conditions and the full range of needs for supports and services”
Support, training, and resources for family members and caregivers
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(ii): “examines supports for caregivers”
Crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and well-being research
42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(iii): “supports and services...to ensure the safety, and promote the well-being, of such individuals”
Professional training and workforce development in autism services
42 U.S.C. § 280i‑1 (PHSA § 399BB): training professionals to “utilize valid and reliable screening tools...and provide evidence-based interventions”; see also 42 U.S.C. § 284g(a)(1)(B)(i): “dissemination and implementation of clinical care, supports, interventions, and treatments”
The stacked bars on the Overview and fiscal year tabs show how grants in each CARES domain map back to the original IACC categories. The CARES classification builds on the established IACC framework rather than replacing it. The overlap also surfaces new information: many grants classified as Biology under the IACC framework carry relevance to CARES domains like co-occurring conditions, communication, and lifespan that the single-label view misses.
Validation note: We validated the classification through three checks: IACC benchmark comparison, cross-platform validation across two independent AI systems, and manual spot-checking of boundary cases. The companion Excel file contains the full grant-level coding.
We designed this analysis to be extended, not just read. The companion Excel file (Autism_NIH_Portfolio_Analysis_v2.xlsx) contains the grant-level coding for all 4,802 grants (FY2019 through FY2026) across both the IACC and CARES Act frameworks. Any reviewer can inspect how individual grants were classified, conduct independent spot-checks, or reclassify boundary cases using their own judgment.
Future analyses can build directly from this work. The process is: (1) download a fresh extract from NIH RePORTER using the same search parameters documented in the policy brief, (2) apply the classification rules outlined in the methodology to the new grants, and (3) merge the results with the existing coded dataset. Because the rules are explicit and the prior grant-level coding is preserved, the framework is cumulative. New fiscal years can be added without reclassifying the full historical portfolio.
The classification rules themselves are documented in the policy brief's methodology section and appendix. The IACC rules follow the seven Strategic Plan questions used in the published IACC Portfolio Analysis. The CARES Act rules are derived from the statutory language of multiple sections of the Public Health Service Act as amended by the Autism CARES Act of 2024, primarily 42 U.S.C. § 284g (PHSA § 409C) and 42 U.S.C. §§ 280i through 280i‑3 (PHSA §§ 399AA through 399DD), with signal terms and domain definitions listed in the appendix crosswalk table (Exhibit A-2).
This dashboard is designed as a high-level policy monitoring tool. For readers who want more depth, three companion documents provide the full analytical detail:
All three files use the same dataset and classification framework as this dashboard.
This analysis provides a directionally sound, policy-relevant view of NIH autism funding. Keep the following assumptions and limitations in mind when interpreting the results.
The CARES Act framework tags a single grant for multiple domains when the research spans more than one priority area. A grant studying seizure management in autistic adults, for example, counts under both Co-occurring Conditions and Lifespan and Aging. As a result, the domain percentages on the CARES tabs add up to more than 100%. This is by design and reflects how policy-relevant research often cuts across categories. The IACC framework, by contrast, assigns each grant to exactly one category, so those percentages sum to 100%.
All grants in this analysis come from NIH RePORTER. NIH funds approximately 68% of total federal autism research. Other federal agencies, including CDC, HRSA, ACL, DOJ, ED, DOD, and NSF, fund several CARES Act domains substantially, particularly Services, Surveillance, Safety and Well-being, Caregiver Support, and Workforce and Training. Low NIH investment in a given domain does not necessarily indicate low federal investment overall. Expanding this analysis to other agencies with publicly accessible data is a logical next step.
We classified grants using the title, abstract, and keywords available in NIH RePORTER. Some grants involve activities not fully captured in their public text descriptions. The classification reflects what the available grant record shows, not the totality of what a research team is doing. This same constraint applies to the IACC Portfolio Analysis and other text-based classification approaches.
Some grants sit at the boundary between domains, particularly between Interventions and Services, between Foundational Research and Co-occurring Conditions, and between Screening and Surveillance. We designed the classification rules to be consistent and replicable, but reasonable reviewers could assign some boundary cases differently. We manually spot-checked selected boundary cases, and the companion Excel file contains the full grant-level coding for independent review.
The Autism CARES Act was signed in December 2024, and NIH's grant planning cycle typically spans two or more years. FY2025 grants therefore largely reflect pre-CARES Act planning decisions rather than a response to the new law. FY2025 was also an atypical funding year given broader changes in federal funding and administration. FY2025 reflects grant records before NIH has completed its final spending-category review, so counts may change.
The FY2026 extract (March 2026) captures only the grants that had been processed and posted to RePORTER at that point. Do not interpret this as a full-year decrease in autism funding. Many grants are posted later in the fiscal year, and the final FY2026 portfolio will look substantially different from what is shown here.
We derived age group coding (e.g., children, adolescents, adults) from the grant text. Treat these assignments as exploratory. Many grants, particularly those in basic science, genetics, and neuroscience, do not specify a target age group. The "Unspecified" category does not indicate vague or unfocused research; it includes cellular, molecular, genetic, and animal model studies that are foundational to understanding autism but are not directed at a single age group.
The Foundational Research domain includes genetics, neuroscience, brain function and circuits, molecular pathways, immune and metabolic pathways, biosignatures, neuropathology, sensory and motor function, cognition and communication, co-occurring conditions, developmental trajectories, biomarkers, environmental factors, longitudinal studies, animal models, and preclinical work. Much of this research simultaneously addresses other CARES Act domains. The large share of NIH funding in this domain reflects NIH's core mission in basic biomedical research.
FY2024 is the anchor year for this analysis. It is the most recent complete fiscal year and captures the NIH autism portfolio just before the CARES Act became law. Click any domain bar to filter the grant table below.
Bars are scaled by funding. Color segments show the original IACC classification within each domain. Domains near the top receive the largest share; domains near the bottom receive the smallest.
| Project Number | PI | Title | Funding | IACC Q. | CARES Domains | Age |
|---|
FY2025 is the first full fiscal year after the CARES Act became law, but NIH planned and committed most of these grants before the legislation was signed. NIH's planning cycle spans two or more years, so FY2025 should not be read as a response to the Act. It was also an atypical funding year given broader changes in federal funding and administration. Click any domain bar to filter the grant table below.
Bars are scaled by funding with IACC classification segments. Because this data is preliminary, domain totals may shift as NIH finalizes its spending-category review.
| Project Number | PI | Title | Funding | IACC Q. | CARES Domains | Age |
|---|
This data was extracted from NIH RePORTER in March 2026, roughly halfway through the fiscal year. It includes only grants NIH had processed and posted at that point. Totals will be substantially lower than the final FY2026 portfolio. This tab is included for transparency, not as a basis for year-over-year comparisons. Click any domain bar to filter the grant table below.
Bars are scaled by funding with IACC classification segments. Because the fiscal year is incomplete, smaller domains may appear disproportionately thin or absent.
| Project Number | PI | Title | Funding | IACC Q. | CARES Domains | Age |
|---|