Structurally, white researchers receive more subsidies than black researchers

In the United States, whether you get a grant for your research depends not only on your qualities, but also on your skin color.

White researchers are structurally more likely to receive grants for scientific research than ethnic minorities, according to a new study into funding ratios, types of scholarships and subsidies and the evaluation of university applications. National Science Foundation (NSF), The American equivalent of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Study reveals decades of systemic racism. White lead researchers, that is Principal investigators (PIs)are allocated structurally more funding than non-white major indices, and this gap has widened in recent years, according to a meta-analysis of university of hawaii, it is in Sciences I figured out.

White privilege
“The large numbers and structural nature of these racial funding disparities create a significant and growing advantage for white research leaders across the science spectrum. The NRF is the primary source of government funding, especially in mathematics, information technology, economics, and the social sciences,” the research team wrote.

Every year, NSF receives thousands of proposals. The agency lists funding percentages in its public annual reports, distinguishing between seven different racial groups: white, black, Asian, Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and mixed researchers. The team analyzed data from more than a million proposals received by NSF between 1996 and 2019.

Deep institutional racism
“What we saw in the data was amazing,” says Professor Rosie Alegado. “They force us to confront the uncomfortable reality that the system we call meritocracy heavily favors white academics, while other ethnic groups lose out and lose out on funding. By focusing on racial background, we were able to identify deep institutional racism in the awarding of research grants. It is very important that this data remains publicly available in the future, so that we can continue to closely monitor improvements in this process, until the moment when the last name of the research leader no longer matters.

Each year, NSF funding rates change due to shifts in budgets and changes in the number of proposals submitted. Naturally, postdoctoral researcher Christine Yifeng Chen and her team took these annual fluctuations and other confounding factors in the data set into account in their results and conclusions. “We see what remains: systematic and persistent disparities in funding rates between racial groups,” Chen explains. “Across 23 years, proposals from white principal investigators have been approved more often than average. Proposals from Black, Indigenous, and people of color principal investigators have a structurally lower chance of receiving funding after their research application is processed.”

12,820 scholarships were wrongly rejected
NSF has coordinated and supported all non-medical basic science research in the United States since 1950. The institute's budget was more than $8 billion in 2019. It received about 42,000 proposals that year, and the study found that 798 “too many” grants were awarded to scientists Eggs in 2019 alone. Over twenty years, this surplus amounted to at least 12,820 scholarships, which should have actually been distributed to non-white scholars.

“The call to eliminate systemic racism in American institutions has become stronger in recent decades,” Alegado said. “There are steps these agencies and others can take to correct this shameful trend. Based on the demographics of our student base, University of Hawaii It is designated by the U.S. Department of Education as an Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander institution.

Active support
“This gives us a unique opportunity to make a positive impact and eliminate inequalities based on racial and ethnic diversity. We do this by actively supporting the careers of students and university staff from ethnic minority groups. The focus is on the recruitment process in various faculties and new university programs spread widely, with the aim of Retaining talented people from these minorities and allowing them to enter university.