The COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented investment in coronavirus vaccine R&D, but the long-term trajectory of this funding remains unclear. We mapped coronavirus vaccine grant support from 2020 through 2025, and found an early surge focused on ancestral SARS-CoV-2, a pivot toward broadly protective coronavirus vaccines (BPCV), and then a steep decline in publicly available funding overall, especially in the United States. Reduced sustained investment may weaken future preparedness and response globally to emergent coronavirus threats.
Fleming et al. (2026) studied this question.