The National Institutes of Health has suddenly withdrawn researchers’ applications for a prestigious grant that were submitted with a diversity notation — effectively disqualifying many early-career academics from underrepresented backgrounds.
The decision was confirmed in emails from NIH officials that were shared with The Chronicle. Non-diversity applications for the award, a predoctoral program known as the F31 fellowship, will still be considered.
Meanwhile, a number of other grant programs directed at scholars from underrepresented backgrounds were also shuttered this week by the NIH, after President Trump signed executive orders taking aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
The NIH — the largest source of research funding in the United States — temporarily halted grant-review panels as it navigated Trump’s sweeping orders and a communications pause, plunging researchers into uncertainty.
This week, the reviews — a mandatory step for researchers to win funding — were back on. But applications for some grants allocated to underrepresented scholars were withdrawn from study sections, and at least 20 such awards, including the F31 diversity fellowship, were listed as “closed” on the federal grants site — leaving minority scientists unsure about the future of their research funding.
Also on Friday, the agency announced a 15-percent cap on indirect funding, which is used to support facilities, equipment, and staff expenses. With some universities’ indirect funding covered at more than 50 percent, the move is expected to deal a major blow to institutions’ budgets and sparked immediate blowback across higher ed.
Scholarship in Jeopardy
Many NIH grant programs have offered two parallel tracks, one of which has been earmarked for scholars from underrepresented backgrounds.
According to a now-expired NIH notice, that track included people from certain racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities, and those from “disadvantaged backgrounds,” such as first-generation students and Pell Grant recipients. The F31 diversity fellowship, designed to “promote diversity in health-related research,” was among those cut this week.
Carolyn Fredericks, an assistant professor of neurology at the Yale School of Medicine, said that F31 diversity awards are fundamentally identical to the non-diversity equivalents. “It’s the exact same grant scientifically. They just earmarked a certain percentage of them for diverse applicants,” she said, adding that “many, many of those diversity grants would have scored extremely well even without that kind of diversity earmark. These are extremely talented Ph.D. students who’ve just happened to come from these diverse and sometimes very challenging backgrounds.”
But a grant reviewer — who requested anonymity to speak with The Chronicle because they have a confidentiality agreement with the NIH — said they received an email from an NIH official on Tuesday saying that the F31 diversity applications “are being administratively withdrawn and will not be reviewed.” (The Chronicle reviewed a copy of the message. The NIH did not respond to calls and emails requesting comment.)
They haven’t leveled the playing field, they’ve taken the diversity applications off the field.
Jeffrey L. Weiner, a professor of translational neuroscience at Wake Forest University, wrote on Bluesky that F31 diversity applications had been removed from a study section he serves on. An NIH official emailed members of the section on Wednesday morning noting that “specific applications have been removed” from consideration. “If you were assigned to one of these applications, you will no longer see it on your assignment list, and you should stop any work on it,” read the email, which Weiner shared with The Chronicle.
Both the anonymous reviewer and Weiner — who said he was speaking only as an individual and not on his institution’s behalf — said that the diversity applications they’d been assigned had disappeared from their queue in the online grant-management portal. The other applications they were assigned remain, and the study sections are scheduled to proceed without the diversity applications.
The only recourse affected applicants seem to have, both reviewers said, is to submit their proposal as a separate application, without the diversity notation.
But because the NIH only offers three submission cycles per year, with the next round of applications due in April, early-career scholars’ progress could be delayed for up to a year, potentially jeopardizing their ability to finish their studies.
“We’re just going to lose a whole generation of scientists,” the anonymous reviewer said, “because the opportunities to get trained, to advance, to work in labs, to get postdocs, that all is really, really being restricted.”
‘I Just Want It Reviewed’
The NIH’s decision not to consider F31 diversity grant applications affected Cameron Le Roux, a Ph.D. candidate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Marta Koperska, a Ph.D. candidate at Wake Forest University. Both said their applications were scheduled to be reviewed by an NIH study section, or review committee — Koperska’s in late February and Le Roux’s in early March.
On Tuesday, both women told The Chronicle, they received automated messages informing them their assigned study section had been changed. Upon logging in, they saw that their applications were no longer assigned to any study section or review date. The online portal that processes applications, Koperska says, is “basically now blank.”
Nor have they been able to get more information about their status. Le Roux wrote to the NIH official overseeing her study section, who said he had nothing to share. (Le Roux’s scheduled study section included reviews of both diversity and non-diversity applications, as is typical.)
“Unfortunately, I am unable to provide you with additional information at this time,” Vilen Alexander Movsesyan wrote, saying that Le Roux would receive a notification “when the status of your application changes.” (Movsesyan did not respond to a request for comment; Le Roux shared a copy of his email with The Chronicle.)
Koperska said she is considering whether to resubmit her application for a regular F31 award, the deadline for which would be in April. “I just want it reviewed,” she said. “If I knew this was going to happen, I would have submitted it as a normal grant.”
One student at an R1 institution who applied in August for an F31 award learned on Friday that her application would not be considered. A faculty member who works with the student, and asked to remain anonymous for fear of professional repercussions, told The Chronicle that the student was informed in November that her application was likely to be funded. Only when the faculty member contacted the NIH on the student’s behalf, on Friday, did she learn that the diversity funding mechanism “no longer existed.”
The student’s funding has been retroactively withdrawn, the faculty member said, and the NIH will not consider her application for a non-diversity award, even though those applications were evaluated in the same meeting and under the same rubric as hers.
“They haven’t leveled the playing field,” the faculty member said, “they’ve taken the diversity applications off the field.”
‘Zero Ifs, Buts, Negotiations’
Tyler S. Nelson, a research assistant scientist at the University of Florida, is scrambling to resubmit his work for a non-diversity-focused grant. Nelson applied in October for a diversity-focused K99 “Pathway to Independence Award” for his research on the neurobiology of pain in Parkinson’s disease. If he received the grant, Nelson said, it would have covered the two remaining years of his postdoctoral work and three years of independent scientific research.
Nelson’s application was scheduled to come before a study section in early March. But on Tuesday night, Nelson got a call from an NIH official who, Nelson said, was apologetic about the news he delivered: “‘Your grant will not be discussed. It’s being withdrawn. Zero ifs, buts, negotiations.’”
The official, Nelson added, “only felt compelled to tell me because he thought I was a qualified applicant and he knew my timeline was tight.” The official advised Nelson to withdraw his diversity-focused application and submit instead for a regular award. The deadline for that award is February 12, giving Nelson about a week to rework his application.
Nelson, Le Roux, and Koperska said that their research is unrelated to diversity issues. The only portion of their application pertaining to diversity were letters affirming that they qualified for the diversity-focused award.
As a Latino who had to work to pay my way through college, this hits in a way that is difficult to describe.
Robert Woodry, a Ph.D. candidate in cognition and perception at New York University, learned on Friday that his grant application was removed from review. He had applied for an F99/K00 award known as D-SPAN, which allocated funding for Ph.D. and postdoctoral neuroscience researchers from underrepresented backgrounds.
“I think it’s safe to say the D-SPAN no longer exists,” Woodry said in an email to The Chronicle. On Friday, the description of the program on the award’s webpage was shortened and changed from present to past tense, reflecting its status as a bygone grant initiative.
One current scholar who already received a D-SPAN award told The Chronicle he has not received word from NIH and doesn’t know the status of his funding.
Woodry said he and other researchers are “stuck in limbo.” Despite the email he received notifying that his application was scrapped, when he logged into his grant-management portal, it said his grant was still pending review. Since NIH only allows one grant to be reviewed at a time, he is unsure whether he can apply for other funding.
“It feels like we’re being punished for applying to a grant that recognizes people from underrepresented and/or underprivileged backgrounds,” Woodry said. “As a Latino who had to work to pay my way through college, this hits in a way that is difficult to describe.”
