Are Female Applicants Disadvantaged in National Institutes of Health Peer Review? Combining Algorithmic Text Mining and Qualitative Methods to Detect Evaluative Differences in R01 Reviewers' Critiques

Abstract

Background: Women are less successful than men in renewing R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health. Continuing to probe text mining as a tool to identify gender bias in peer review, we used algorithmic text mining and qualitative analysis to examine a sample of critiques from men's and women's R01 renewal applications previously analyzed by counting and comparing word categories.

Methods: We analyzed 241 critiques from 79 Summary Statements for 51 R01 renewals awarded to 45 investigators (64% male, 89% white, 80% PhD) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison between 2010 and 2014. We used latent Dirichlet allocation to discover evaluative "topics" (i.e., words that co-occur with high probability). We then qualitatively examined the context in which evaluative words occurred for male and female investigators. We also examined sex differences in assigned scores controlling for investigator productivity.

Results: Text analysis results showed that male investigators were described as "leaders" and "pioneers" in their "fields," with "highly innovative" and "highly significant research." By comparison, female investigators were characterized as having "expertise" and working in "excellent" environments. Applications from men received significantly better priority, approach, and significance scores, which could not be accounted for by differences in productivity.

Conclusions: Results confirm our previous analyses suggesting that gender stereotypes operate in R01 grant peer review. Reviewers may more easily view male than female investigators as scientific leaders with significant and innovative research, and score their applications more competitively. Such implicit bias may contribute to sex differences in award rates for R01 renewals.

Keywords: NIH funding; gender differences; women's career advancement.

FIG. 1.

Scores assigned to male and female PIs' Type 2 R01 applications. Estimated priority, approach, and significance scores assigned to male and female investigators' Type 2 applications from a study of 241 NIH R01 grant critiques and scores, University of Wisconsin–Madison, fiscal years 2010–2014. Priority scores (scale: 10 [best] to 90 [worst]) are modeled at the application Summary Statement level, N = 68; and criteria scores (scale: 1 [best] to 9 [worst]) are modeled at the critique level, N = 206. Regression models adjusted for application funding outcome, PI experience level, and productivity measures [h-index, NIH Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), prior NIH Grants (Type 1 and Type 2 R01, other R(esearch) awards, P(rogram) awards, T(raining) awards, Career Development (K) awards, F(ellowship) awards)]. NIH, National Institutes of Health; PI, principal investigator. *Difference between scores assigned to male and female PIs' Type 2 applications is significant at the p < 0.05 level.