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Our series of blog posts on the distributions of gender and race of designated principal investigators (PIs) of R01 and RPG applications submitted before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic continues today. When looking back, posts from April 2022, October 2021, June 2021, and July 2020 did not show any particularly marked differences in the high-level demographics of designated PIs during the course of the pandemic.
In response to reader comments, we looked at applications broken down by career stage in June 2022. It was interesting to notice slowly increasing trends in the proportions of early stage investigator (ESI) applications submitted by women and by underrepresented minorities URMs. We repeat these career stage analyses here, specifically focusing on applications received between January 8 and September 7 in six consecutive years.
R01-equivalent applications received between January 8 and May 7 (Table 1) and May 8 and September 7 (Table 2) are shown below according to career stage. The data include both Type 1 new applications (de novo) and Type 2 renewal applications.
The number of applications received in both time frames in 2022 was less than 2021, potentially hinting that there may be a return to pre-pandemic application levels and more investigators being back in a physical workspace. The proportion of applications designating ESI PIs has trended upwards in the past six years, but the opposite has happened for other New Investigators who are not ESIs.
Table 1: R01-equivalent applications by Career Stage received between January 8 and May 7 in 6 consecutive years
| Year | Number | ESI (%) | NI Non-ESI (%) | Experienced (%) |
| 2017 | 11331 | 12.7 | 14.9 | 72.3 |
| 2018 | 12322 | 13.4 | 15.3 | 71.3 |
| 2019 | 12430 | 13 | 14.8 | 72.2 |
| 2020 | 12091 | 13.9 | 13.3 | 72.8 |
| 2021 | 12543 | 15.2 | 13.1 | 71.7 |
| 2022 | 11857 | 14.5 | 12.5 | 73.1 |
Table 2: R01-equivalent applications by Career Stage received between May 8 and September 7 in 6 consecutive years
| Year | Number | ESI (%) | NI Non-ESI (%) | Experienced (%) |
| 2017 | 12539 | 14.6 | 14.7 | 70.8 |
| 2018 | 12593 | 14.7 | 15.6 | 69.7 |
| 2019 | 13153 | 17.1 | 13.6 | 69.2 |
| 2020 | 14379 | 16.5 | 12.8 | 70.7 |
| 2021 | 13962 | 17.3 | 13.3 | 69.5 |
| 2022 | 12933 | 17.3 | 12.9 | 69.9 |
Let’s now focus on ESIs. The remaining data in this post represent only Type 1 applications. The proportion of applications designating male ESIs only is decreasing, while those designating only female ESIs is increasing.
Table 3: Type 1 R01-equivalent ESI applications by gender received between January 8 and May 7 in 6 consecutive years
| Year | Number | All Men (%) | All Women (%) | Both (%) | Unknown (%) |
| 2017 | 1440 | 55.6 | 39.2 | 2.6 | 2.5 |
| 2018 | 1651 | 54.5 | 40.3 | 2.6 | 2.6 |
| 2019 | 1617 | 53.8 | 41.4 | 1.8 | 3 |
| 2020 | 1680 | 51.4 | 42.7 | 2.4 | 3.4 |
| 2021 | 1900 | 51.5 | 41.6 | 3.2 | 3.8 |
| 2022 | 1713 | 49.4 | 43.7 | 3 | 4 |
Table 4: Type 1 R01-equivalent ESI applications by gender received between May 8 and September 7 in 6 consecutive years
| Year | Number | All Men (%) | All Women (%) | Both (%) | Unknown (%) |
| 2017 | 1828 | 57.8 | 36.3 | 2.6 | 3.3 |
| 2018 | 1850 | 55.8 | 39.5 | 2.1 | 2.7 |
| 2019 | 2248 | 55.3 | 39.7 | 1.5 | 3.5 |
| 2020 | 2364 | 52.8 | 41.6 | 1.7 | 3.8 |
| 2021 | 2410 | 50.5 | 43.9 | 1.8 | 3.8 |
| 2022 | 2234 | 49 | 43.9 | 2.3 | 4.8 |
Tables 5 and 6 continue to show increasing proportions of applications designating all underrepresented minority (URM) researchers.
Table 5: Type 1 R01-equivalent ESI applications by URM received between January 8 and May 7 in 6 consecutive years
| Year | Number | All URM (%)1 | All Not URM (%)2 | Other (%)3 |
| 2017 | 1440 | 7.6 | 81.2 | 11.1 |
| 2018 | 1651 | 8.1 | 81.8 | 10.2 |
| 2019 | 1617 | 8.1 | 81.5 | 10.4 |
| 2020 | 1680 | 8 | 79.9 | 12.1 |
| 2021 | 1900 | 9.2 | 77.9 | 12.8 |
| 2022 | 1713 | 8.9 | 79.8 | 11.3 |
1 URM includes Black, American Indian, and Pacific Islander Race or Hispanic Ethnicity. All principal investigators had to be a URM.
2 Non-URM includes White or Asian Race and Non-Hispanic Ethnicity. All principal investigators had to be a Non-URM.
3 For “Non-URM Only,’ All other combinations including those with unknown/withheld race or ethnicity are considered as “Other.”
Table 6: Type 1 R01-equivalent ESI applications by URM received between May 8 and September 7 in 6 consecutive years
| Year | Number | All URM(%) | All Not URM(%) | Other(%) |
| 2017 | 1828 | 7.8 | 81.5 | 10.7 |
| 2018 | 1850 | 7.9 | 79.7 | 12.3 |
| 2019 | 2248 | 8.1 | 80.4 | 11.5 |
| 2020 | 2364 | 8.3 | 79.7 | 12 |
| 2021 | 2410 | 9.7 | 78.6 | 11.7 |
| 2022 | 2234 | 10.8 | 76.5 | 12.8 |
We are pleased to see the proportion of applications designating either female or URM early-stage investigators continue to increase. Please stay tuned as we continue to look at these application data to see how things change while we move into a new phase of the pandemic.
I am grateful to colleagues in the NIH Office of Extramural Research’s Division of Statistical Analysis and Reporting for help with these analyses.
I think it would be important to consider the family situation of the applicants and investigate the impact of the pandemic on submissions by mothers of young children. Women with young children have been disproportionally impacted by the pandemic, but women (and men) without family obligation might have actually been facilitated in submitting grants (and manuscripts, which indirectly affects funding success) during the pandemic, given the removal of several service-related burdens and the shift to online meetings. In addition, it is important to look not only at the number of grants submitted, but also the scores and funding successes. During the pandemic, women with young children might have succeeded in submitting grant proposals but they might have been more impacted in their ability to collect preliminary data and submit manuscripts for example, impacting the scores.