National Institutes of Health Institute and Center Award Rates and Funding Disparities

A previous report found an association of topic choice with race-based funding disparities among R01 applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”) between 2011-2015. Applications submitted by African American or Black (“AAB”) Principal Investigators (“PIs”) skewed toward a small number of topics that were less likely to be funded (or “awarded”). It was suggested that lower award rates may be related to biases of peer reviewers. However, the report did not account for differential funding ecologies among NIH Institutes and Centers (“ICs”). In a re-analysis, we find that 10% of 148 topics account for 50% of applications submitted by AAB PIs. These applications on “AAB Preferred” topics were funded at lower rates, but peer review outcomes were similar. The lower rate of funding was primarily due to their assignment to ICs with lower award rates. After accounting for IC-specific award rates, topic choice was not associated with funding.