TY - JOUR
KW - Biomedical Research
KW - Black or African American
KW - Humans
KW - National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
KW - Peer Review, Research
KW - Race Factors
KW - Racism
KW - Research Personnel
KW - Research Support as Topic
KW - United States
KW - Computational Biology
KW - disparities
KW - Funding
KW - government
KW - none
KW - peer review
KW - policy
KW - systems biology
AU - Michael S. Lauer
AU - Jamie Doyle
AU - Joy Wang
AU - Deepshikha Roychowdhury
AB - A previous report found an association of topic choice with race-based funding disparities among R01 applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health ('NIH') between 2011 and 2015. Applications submitted by African American or Black ('AAB') Principal Investigators ('PIs') skewed toward a small number of topics that were less likely to be funded (or 'awarded'). It was suggested that lower award rates may be related to topic-related biases of peer reviewers. However, the report did not account for differential funding ecologies among NIH Institutes and Centers ('ICs'). In a re-analysis, we find that 10% of 148 topics account for 50% of applications submitted by AAB PIs. These applications on 'AAB Preferred' topics were funded at lower rates, but peer review outcomes were similar. The lower rate of funding for these topics was primarily due to their assignment to ICs with lower award rates, not to peer-reviewer preferences.
BT - eLife
DA - 2021-04-30
DO - 10.7554/eLife.67173
LA - eng
N2 - A previous report found an association of topic choice with race-based funding disparities among R01 applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health ('NIH') between 2011 and 2015. Applications submitted by African American or Black ('AAB') Principal Investigators ('PIs') skewed toward a small number of topics that were less likely to be funded (or 'awarded'). It was suggested that lower award rates may be related to topic-related biases of peer reviewers. However, the report did not account for differential funding ecologies among NIH Institutes and Centers ('ICs'). In a re-analysis, we find that 10% of 148 topics account for 50% of applications submitted by AAB PIs. These applications on 'AAB Preferred' topics were funded at lower rates, but peer review outcomes were similar. The lower rate of funding for these topics was primarily due to their assignment to ICs with lower award rates, not to peer-reviewer preferences.
PY - 2021
EP - e67173
T2 - eLife
TI - Associations of topic-specific peer review outcomes and institute and center award rates with funding disparities at the National Institutes of Health
VL - 10
SN - 2050-084X
ER -