Ethnicity grant-awarding gap widens with age for EPSRC applicants

Mid-career ethnic-minority academics are much less likely than white scholars to win UK research grants, says a new study highlighting how the ethnicity awarding gap widens for older researchers.

New analysis commissioned by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) into its grant awards over the past nine years reveal there is a relatively small awarding gap between ethnic-minority and white applicants under 36 with a predicted average success rate of 34.2 per cent versus 37.4 per cent, a 3.5 percentage point difference.

That gap more than doubled to 8.3 percentage points for ethnic minority applicants between the ages of 36 to 55, with average predicted success rates of 24.4 per cent for ethnic minority lead applicants and 32.7 per cent for white applicants in this age range.

For those over 55 the gap rose to 8.9 percentage points with 21.3 per cent of ethnic-minority scholars having their bids approved compared with 32.1 per cent of white applicants, says the study carried out by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) with input from the Alan Turing Institute.

That lower success rate came despite ethnic-minority scholars applying for less funding than white applicants, with non-white applicants asking for 90p for every £1 requested by white scholars, says the study published on 6 March.

The research follows previous studies at the ESPRC which flagged consistent disparities in awarding levels which have led to an underrepresentation of ethnic-minority principal investigators, co-investigators and early career fellows. A lack of trust in the peer review process has also been mentioned by ethnic-minority researchers as a reason for the disparity, the latest study explains.

On this issue of apparent bias, the RSS undertook a survey of ethnic-minority applicants which found there was a perception of bias in the peer review process, though the majority of respondents felt it related to “institution rather than ethnicity – indicating a more nuanced picture than simply processes that inadvertently introduce bias against ethnic minority applicants”, says the study.

However, there was no evidence for institutional bias in evaluations, the RSS study says.

The study’s efforts to detect bias in reviewer and panellist comments found, however, that there are “modest but significant negative effects of reviewer and applicant ethnicity on scores”, with white and Chinese reviewers appearing to give higher scores to applicants that share their ethnicity.

The composition of review panels also affected the relative scores given to women, with female applicants ranked 8.5 per cent higher than male applicants in interviews when at least one panellist was female but 7.9 per cent lower than males when this was not the case, the study says.

Nearly all the all-male panels took place before the ESPRC introduced its mixed-gender panel policy in 2016, with women now making up about 30 per cent of panellists, the study notes.

Charlotte Deane, the EPSRC’s executive chair, said the report “presents us with valuable new insights to explore future actions to add to the initiatives we are already undertaking as part of our [equality, diversity and inclusion] action plan”.

“Working in research is one of the best jobs in the world. We want to attract people with a wide range of perspectives and ideas so that everyone has the chance to experience it,” said Deane, who added that “bringing new approaches and solutions [would] help fulfil the potential of research and innovation in improving people’s lives”.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com