Analysis of R-award funding rates based on PI Race-Ethnicity

NIH periodically publishes analyses of grant outcome metrics (award rate, success, rate, and funding rate) based on a variety of demographic factors.  Award rates and success rates are application-based metrics, while funding rates are person-based. Recently, NIH retrospectively reviewed K- and R-award funding rates based on the race-ethnicity of the PI for a 12-year period encompassing fiscal years 2010 through 2022.  The results from the analysis of Research Project Grants (RPGs) and R01-equivalent grants are below. The K-award information is available in a separate blog post.

Before we get any further, let’s explore how NIH defines each of these metrics.

Award Rates, Success Rates, and Funding Rates

• Award Rate is the number of awards made in a fiscal year divided by the absolute number of applications where we don’t combine resubmissions (A1s) that come in during the same fiscal year.¹

• Success rate is the number of awards made divided by the sum of the applications reviewed that fiscal year where revisions submitted in the same fiscal year are collapsed and counted as one application¹ or, more briefly, the percentage of reviewed grant applications* that receive funding.²

• Funding Rate is the ratio of the number of unique applicant PIs who are successful on at least one application to the number of unique applicant PIs who submitted at least one application.³ 

Race and Ethnicity Data

Data on race and ethnicity are taken from the information that principal investigators provide voluntarily in their eRA Commons Personal Profile. If individuals described themselves as Hispanic in the ethnicity field and not Black in the race field, then race-ethnicity was considered to be Hispanic; otherwise, the individual’s race-ethnicity was based on the information entered in the race field.

Defining RPGs and R01-equivalent grants

The NIH Glossary⁴ defines Research Project Grants (RPGs) and Cooperative Agreements as including activity codes R00, R01, R03, R15, R16, R21, R33, R34, R35, R36, R37, R50, R56, R61, RC1, RC2, RC3, RC4, RF1, RL1, RL2, RL9, P01, P42, PM1, PN1, RM1, UA5, UC1, UC2, UC3, UC4, UC7, UF1, UG3, UH2, UH3, UH5, UM1, UM2, U01, U19, U34, U3R, DP1, DP2, DP3, DP4, DP5.

R01-equivalent grants, a subset of RPGs, are activity codes DP1, DP2, DP5, R01, R37, R56, RF1, RL1, U01 and R35 from select NIGMS and NHGRI program announcements (PAs).

Analysis Results

In fiscal year 2022, the number of white applicants declined as did those whose race-ethnicity was unknown. The number of Black and Hispanic applicants and awardees continued an upward trajectory. There were approximately 1,250 Black applicants and just over 300 awardees for Type 1 RPG grants compared to approximately 1,200 and 275, respectively, in fiscal year 2021.

There were approximately 850 Black applicants and just over 250 Black awardees for R01-equivalent grants compared to about 775 and 175 in 2021, respectively.

For Hispanic investigators, there were just over 2,250 applicants and just under 650 awardees for RPG grants compared to 2,250 and just over 550, respectively, in 2021. There were 1,600 Hispanic applicants and 450 awardees in fiscal year 2022 for R01- equivalent grants compared to approximately 1,500 and 375, respectively, in fiscal year 2021.

The post also included a table that compared race-ethnicity based on categories such as gender, ESI status, type of degree, submission of animal study, submission of a human subjects study, and others. Across races, males still constituted more applicants than females and white applicants still outpaced other races in each category.

In summary, the funding gap between white applicants and Asian and Hispanic applicants decreased markedly, while the gap between white and Black applicants is reduced, but still prevalent.

References

1.  https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2014/03/05/comparing-success-award-funding-rates/
2. https://report.nih.gov/sites/report/files/docs/NIH%20Success%20Rate%20Definition%202018.pdf
3. https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2022/06/14/research-project-grant-funding-rates-and-principal-investigator-race-and-ethnicity/
4.  https://grants.nih.gov/grants/glossary.htm#R