'Racial gap' found in US science funding

[dreamdancer 0]

interesting...

Quote

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.

"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."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20815-racial-gap-found-in-us-science-funding.html

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[loumeinhart 0]

Found the supplement here

Interesting how Dreamdancer titled this thread. Do you realize that the R01 disparity only exists on model 5? Also note that on proposals submitted 3 or more times, the difference between Blacks/Whites was not "statistically significant" (Asians dropped 4% below Blacks).

There are significant differences in research production (table S11) between Blacks/Whites especially in number of citations and first-author. This was of course adjusted in the sampling but I wonder if that promotes a general bias among the committees?

Quote

Although more research is needed to discern the basis for the award differences, it is possible that cumulative advantage may be involved (15). Small differences in access to research resources and mentoring during training or at the beginning of a career may accumulate to become large between-group differences.