Systemic racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation, Implications to Science Equity, and Possible Countermeasures

Calls to eradicate systemic racism in U.S. institutions have both amplified and received greater attention over the past few decades. The scientific community – inclusive of academic institutions and federal science mission agencies – have been challenged to self-reflect on systemic racism in their policies, procedures, and practices. We investigate publicly available National Science Foundation data on funding rates, award types, and proposal ratings from 1996 to 2019 and find pervasive racial disparities. 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. Disparities occur across all disciplinary directorates 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 funding disparities have cascading impacts that perpetuate a cumulative advantage to white PIs across all of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In this presentation, we highlight and discuss the data on funding outcomes NSF-wide and within the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. We will also highlight programs and countermeasures to the systemic factors that have resulted in driving the cultural change necessary to advance towards the aspirational goals of equity and justice. Removing the hyperfocus on and the conflation of metrics (e.g. diversity) with aspirational goals (e.g. justice) and outcomes (e.g. equity, sense of belonging) is a necessary first step.