NIH Tackles Racism

An advisory committee urges the federal funding agency to take steps to counter racial bias in the granting process.

Written byBob Grant

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IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NIH

African American researchers applying for independent investigator grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are 10 times less likely to win them than their white counterparts, and the agency must take steps to correct the imbalance, according to an NIH advisory committee that submitted a report to the agency's director.

The panel, chaired by two senior African American research administrators, met with NIH director Francis Collins on June 14, and urged bold and continuous action to combat the bias revealed by a study published last year in Science. The initial steps should include data gathering by social and behavioral scientists and establishing a new "chief diversity officer" position, according to the report. The report also suggests that the NIH start mentorship networks that can ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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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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