We investigated the association between a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 applicant's self-identified race or ethnicity and the probability of receiving an award by using data from the NIH IMPAC II grant database, the Thomson Reuters Web of Science, and other sources. Although proposals with strong priority scores were equally likely to be funded regardless of race, we find that Asians are 4 percentage points and black or African-American applicants are 13 percentage points less likely to receive NIH investigator-initiated research funding compared with whites. After controlling for the applicant's educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics, we find that black or African-American applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than whites to be awarded NIH research funding. Our results suggest some leverage points for policy intervention. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a long history of working to increase the diversity of its intramural and extramural biomedical research workforce, especially through programs such as Minority Access to Research Careers, Minority Biomedical Research Support, Research Centers at Minority Institutions, and Diversity Supplements. However, the effects of these programs on the pool of funded NIH grants have not been reported. In fact, there have been relatively few studies on the racial and ethnic composition of populations that apply for federal research funding. Studies of race and ethnicity in science generally focus on differences in representation (1-3) . A recent National Academies study (4) emphasized the need to increase the participation of minorities in science and engineering. In this study, the terms employed for race and ethnicity denote commonly used sociocultural classifications. We hypothesized that scientists of different races and ethnicities with similar research records and affiliations would have similar likelihoods of being awarded research grants. To test this, we used data from the NIH IMPAC II (Information for Management, Planning, Analysis, and Coordination) grants data system consisting of application and investigator
For example, Ginther et al. investigated the association between applicants' ethnicity and the probability of receiving an award by using data from the NIH IMPAC II grant database and the Thomson Reuters Web of Science REF .
RACE, ETHNICITY, AND NIH RESEARCH AWARDS
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Political Science Medicine