NIH’s Office of Extramural Research (OER) completed its series of blog posts on demographic characteristics of principal investigators (PIs) on research project grant applications submitted before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The most recent analysis focuses on career stage, building upon previous analyses to detect and understand varied impacts of the pandemic on productivity for various groupings of PIs.
Recent Data Show Increase in Underrepresented Minority ESIs
In Final Career Stage Analyses of Applications Submitted During the Pandemic (Part 7), OER provides analysis of new R01-equivalent applications by career stage, gender, and underrepresented minority (URM) researchers. The data is divided into 6-month segments, spanning 2017 to 2023.
In previous analyses, OER’s data did not show any significant changes in the high-level demographic trends for designated PIs. Similarly, the most recent analysis showed a continual increase in the proportion of applications designating either female or URM early-stage investigators (ESIs) both before and after the pandemic, without any abrupt dip that could be attributed to the public health emergency.
Other Observations
R01-equivalent applications received between January 8 and May 7, and September 8 and January 7, are categorized according to career stage and include both Type 1 new applications and Type 2 renewal applications. The proportion of applications designating ESI PIs continued to trend higher than the earliest timeframe assessed, whereas the opposite was true for other new investigators not identified as an ESI.
Additionally, data tables 5 and 6 in the blog article continued to show a general increase in the proportion of applications designating “all URM” researchers. The proportion of applications from non-URM ESIs generally decreased over time.
Overall, the proportion of applications from female or URM ESIs continued to increase during the public health emergency. Read the Extramural Nexus blog article linked above for full details.