NIH funding longevity by gender

Significance

Diversity of the biomedical workforce is essential to the scientific enterprise, yet women remain underrepresented in academic positions in biomedical sciences and compose less than one-third of National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grantees. We explored NIH grant support as a proxy for participation in academic research. We found that women had similar funding longevity as men after they received their first major NIH grants, contradicting the common assumption that across all career stages, women experience accelerated attrition compared with men. Despite longevity similarities, women composed only 31% of grantees in our analysis. This discrepancy in grantee demographics suggests that efforts may be best directed toward encouraging women to enter academia and supporting their continued grant submissions.

Abstract

Women have achieved parity with men among biomedical science degree holders but remain underrepresented in academic positions. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research—receives less than one-third of its new grant applications from women. Correspondingly, women compose less than one-third of NIH research grantees, even though they are as successful as men in obtaining first-time grants. Our study examined women’s and men’s NIH funding trajectories over time ( n = 34,770), exploring whether women remain funded at the same rate as men after receiving their first major research grants. A survival analysis demonstrated a slightly lower funding longevity for women. We next examined gender differences in application, review, and funding outcomes. Women individually held fewer grants, submitted fewer applications, and were less successful in renewing grants—factors that could lead to gender differences in funding longevity. Finally, two adjusted survival models that account for initial investigator characteristics or subsequent application behavior showed no gender differences, suggesting that the small observed longevity differences are affected by both sets of factors. Overall, given men’s and women’s generally comparable funding longevities, the data contradict the common assumption that women experience accelerated attrition compared with men across all career stages. Women’s likelihood of sustaining NIH funding may be better than commonly perceived. This suggests a need to explore women’s underrepresentation among initial NIH grantees, as well as their lower rates of new and renewal application submissions.