She says that the NIH does have ways to approach racial equality. She says it’s time that the agency retire the grant-review criterion based on the resources and reputation of an applicant’s institution, because it strongly favours institutions that have historically been well funded.
were worse for female faculty members, who often bear a disproportionate load of family care. Rissland is concerned that, if the agency doesn’t take these concerns seriously, many of these women could leave academia in the next few years.The pandemic forced funders and researchers to accelerate speed of biomedical research — but it also exposed the importance of public buy-in.
William Riley, a social psychologist who served as director of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research until December, agrees. “If we don’t do more research in that area, when the next pandemic comes along, we still won’t have a good understanding of how to address vaccine misinformation,” he says.Beyond funding social and behavioural science, some researchers think the agency needs to re-evaluate how it approaches research questions in general.
In his forthcoming commentary, Hekler and his colleagues propose restructuring the NIH with these principles in mind. They suggest that the agency incorporate institutes that focus on drivers of health and the process of conducting science.