Low female success for high risk awards - October 29, 2009
Women scientists who applied for a new high-risk research award from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) had a lower funding success rate than their male counterparts.
The NIH last month announced the winners of more than 100 new awards totalling US$348 million over five years for outside-the-box biomedical research. The grants came in three flavours: Pioneer awards for innovative researchers at any career stage, New Innovator Awards for up-and-coming investigators, and a new category rolled out for the first time: Transformative R01 (T-R01) Awards for bold and uncertain projects.
As Nature reported last month, more than a third of Pioneer and New Innovator awards went to women, but female researchers made up only around 15% of T-R01 awardees. The question at the time was: How did this compare to the gender ratios of the applicants?
Nature has now learned the answer. According to data newly obtained from the NIH under a freedom of information request, 32% of Pioneer Award applicants and 40% of New Innovator Award applicants who listed their gender were women — on par with the gender ratios of the awardees, which were 34.5% and 39% female, respectively, for the two individual-based awards.
Women applicants fared worse, however, for the T-R01 competition, where 21% of grant hopefuls who listed their gender said they were women, yet only 9 of 59, or 15%, of the awardees were women. This difference, though not statistically significant according to Nature's chi-square test statistical analysis (Χ2 = 0.99, p = 0.32), does not help realize the NIH's vision of developing "opportunities and programs to support recruitment, retention, re-entry, and advancement of girls and women in biomedical careers".
The NIH is now requesting applications for the 2010 T-R01s.
Image: NIH
