Systemic racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation

Concerns about systemic racism at academic and research institutions have increased over the past decade. Here, we investigate data from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a major funder of research in the United States, and find evidence for pervasive racial disparities. In particular, white principal investigators (PIs) are consistently funded at higher rates than most non-white PIs. Funding rates for white PIs have also been increasing relative to annual overall rates with time. Moreover, disparities occur across all disciplinary directorates within the NSF and are greater for research proposals. The distributions of average external review scores also exhibit systematic offsets based on PI race. Similar patterns have been described in other research funding bodies, suggesting that racial disparities are widespread. The prevalence and persistence of these racial disparities in funding have cascading impacts that perpetuate a cumulative advantage to white PIs across all of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Methods
All data were collated from publicly available annual merit review reports published by the National Science Foundation, which can be accessed online at the following link: https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/pubmeritreview.jsp

近十年来，学术界与科研机构中针对系统性种族主义的担忧日益加剧。本研究以美国主要科研资助机构——美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation，NSF）的公开数据为研究对象展开分析，发现了普遍存在的种族差异证据。具体而言，白人项目负责人（Principal Investigator，PIs）的项目资助通过率始终高于绝大多数非白人项目负责人。随着时间推移，白人项目负责人的资助率相较年度整体资助率呈持续上升态势。此外，这类种族差异覆盖美国国家科学基金会下属全部学科部，且在研究提案评审中表现得更为突出。项目负责人的种族背景还会导致外部评审平均分的分布出现系统性偏移。其他科研资助机构中也报道过类似现象，表明种族差异具有普遍性。此类资助领域内种族差异的普遍存在与持续存在，将产生级联效应，在科学、技术、工程与数学（STEM）全领域固化白人项目负责人的累积优势。
研究方法
本研究所有数据均整理自美国国家科学基金会公开发布的年度同行资质评审（merit review）报告，公众可通过以下链接在线获取相关内容：https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/pubmeritreview.jsp