Black scientists are far less likely to receive funding for a research study than a white scientist, according to a study published today in Science Mag. The in-depth analysis of U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant data finds that black Ph.D. scientists chances of winning NIH funding was 10 percentage points lower than that of a white scientist.
The NIH-commissioned analysis, which lifts the lid on confidential grant data, may reflect a series of slight advantages white scientists accumulate over the course of a career, the authors suggest. But the gap could also result from “insidious” bias favoring whites in a peer-review system that supposedly ranks applications only on scientific merit, NIH officials say.
(cited from : newsone.com)
