UW–Madison researchers put grant review process under microscope

The National Institutes of Health 's system for selecting research projects may be considered the gold standard for equitably awarding funding, but that hasn't kept the agency from dispatching three University of Wisconsin-Madison professors to probe the system for bias. "The NIH peer review system is viewed by other countries and organizations as the ultimate review system for research," says Molly Carnes , a women's health researcher and UW-Madison professor of medicine. "That's why it is especially important to study that system. Other institutions look to the NIH as setting the benchmark for peer review." Carnes, psychology professor Patricia Devine and English and sociology professor Cecilia Ford will use a $4.8 million Transformative Research Award from NIH - which annually invests more than $30 billon of public funds in medical research - to determine whether scientists judging the work of fellow scientists award more money to particular genders, races or researchers at prestigious institutions. The UW-Madison group's work follows on the heels of a 2011 study that showed black applicants for NIH funding were 13 percent less likely to secure grants than their white peers. "There is a difference in the funding rate. That seems clear," says Devine, whose research typically focuses on prejudice.