‘Racial gap’ found in US science funding
17:52 22 August 2011 by Ferris Jabr
Black scientists with a PhD – but not other ethnic minorities – received 10 per cent fewer funding awards than would be expected if race were not an issue, according to a new analysis of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant data.
The study analysed more than 80,000 applications for funding from scientists with a PhD. Of those, 1149 came from black applicants. Whites had a 29 per cent success rate for applications, while blacks received funding just 16 per cent of the time. When the researchers controlled for country of origin, additional training, previous research awards, and publication record, the discrepancy was still 10 per cent.
Donna Ginther of the University of Kansas in Lawrence and her co-authors offer several explanations for this disparity. One possibility, they say, is that white scientists generally have access to better academic resources. Another possibility is that some reviewers are biased against black scientists.
Every application is evaluated by three peer reviewers who are not explicitly told the race or ethnicity of the applicant. If peer reviewers decide that an application merits further consideration, they score it and pass it on to NIH administrators, who decide which scored proposals receive funding. Reviewers could infer an applicant’s race from their name, details provided in short biographical sketches or other clues in their research record.
Troubling gap
“I am personally very discouraged by these results,” says Ginther. “We controlled for everything – educational background, publication record, previous awards – and it didn’t work. We couldn’t explain away this large and troubling gap.”
NIH announced that it will conduct an experiment in which a batch of identical grant applications is reviewed by two groups. One group will evaluate typical applications that include names and biographical sketches. The second group will not have access to any details that could betray the identity or race of the applicant, looking instead at the scientific merit of the proposal alone.
“These findings aren’t acceptable,” says Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director of NIH. “We understand NIH needs to do something about it. We have to have a more diverse workforce.”
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