Scientists from Minority-Serving Institutions and Their Participation in Grant Peer Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Funding disparities currently exist across racial groups for grant applicants and between minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and traditionally White institutions (TWIs), with implicit bias in grant review a likely source of these differences. A survey examining grant review participation was disseminated to thousands of MSI-based scientists, and their responses were compared with those in a previous study of predominantly TWI-based scientists. Despite similar levels of grant submission, only 45% of the MSI-based scientists had recently participated in grant review, which is much lower than the rate reported in the previous study. MSI-based scientists indicated not being invited and a general lack of time (largely because of teaching and service responsibilities) as barriers. Nevertheless, the majority of the MSI-based respondents were interested in reviewing and in training in grant reviewing. These results serve as a call to action for research funders to increase both invitations to review and training opportunities for MSI-based scientists.