NIH Biased Against Blacks?

A new study reveals that African American researchers are 10 percent less likely to receive funding from the federal agency than their white peers.

Written byBob Grant

| 2 min read

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IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NIH

African American biomedical researchers applying for funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are less likely to be funded than white scientists, according to a study published last week in Science. The numbers are pretty striking, with the gap in success rates between black and white applicants amounting to 10 percent, even after accounting for factors like publication record, previous research awards, education, country of origin, training, and employer characteristics.

The study's authors, which included former NIH Deputy Director and African American scientist Raynard Kington, analyzed more than 83,000 applications for R01 grants submitted by white, black, Asian, and Hispanic researchers from 2000-2006 and found that 29 percent of the proposals submitted by white applicants were funded, compared to only 16 percent of applications ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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