WIKIMEDIA, JOHN CRAWFORDThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) may not be biased against black scientists after all, according to a new analysis of the agency’s funding practices published yesterday (January 31) in the Journal of Informetrics, which found that African American applicants are funded at a similar rate to white researchers, when controlling for institution and research history.
After 2011 study, coauthored by former NIH Deputy Director and African American scientist Raynard Kington, pointed to the possibility of racial bias within the country’s top biomedical funding agency, the scientific community was abuzz with the news: 29 percent of R01 grant proposals submitted by white scientists were funded, but only 16 percent of applications from black applicants.
“The situation is not acceptable,” NIH Director Francis Collins told Nature. “It indicates that we have not only failed to recruit the best and brightest minds from all the groups that we need but, for those that have come, there is inequity.”
In response to the study, Collins launched a $500 million, 10-year program to support young minorities in science. The agency is also planning a pilot ...
