NIH grant cuts disproportionately hit minority and female scientists

Grants terminations requested by the administration of US President Donald Trump last year disproportionately affected researchers from under-represented groups, a survey suggests. Credit: Loic Venance/AFP via Getty The abrupt termination last year of thousands of research grants by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, didn’t affect all groups of scientists equitably. A survey suggests 1 that it disproportionately hit researchers from groups that have been historically under-represented in the biomedical sciences, including women, people of colour and investigators from sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+). US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains Although some of these cancelled grants were later restored, researchers fear that the cuts — many of which targeted studies on health equity and gender-related issues — will change the demographics of who is doing science in the United States. That, in turn, could widen existing knowledge gaps about populations that are already underserved by the US health-care system, researchers say. Many scientists who research a specific community tend to come from that community themselves, says Donna Ginther, an economist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, who studies scientific labour markets. …