Happy New Year-

I thought this had come up before but an Archives search found nothing.

How do we define "underrepresented minority"?

NIH now says the following in most announcements concerning this subject:
"...underrepresented investigators are defined as individuals belonging to a particular ethnic or racial group that has been determined by the applicant institution to be underrepresented in biomedical or behavioral research." [In most cases, NIH programs for minorities also require U.S. citizenship or perm res]

So...how do we interpret this?  Certainly, most would agree that African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in biomedical research.  And we might agree that western Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, and Indians are not underrepresented.  Are we to consider underrepresentation among U.S. citizens of the ethnic group or among the group world-wide?  IS THIS THE TYPE OF REASONING THAT NIH IS ASKING OF THE INSTITUTIONS?

OR....are local/institutional issues to be considered?  Is this characteristic vagueness in the NIH-ese supposed to be a window for promoting diversity on given campuses?

AND....if an institution has not made any formal determination of what constitutes an underrepresented minority, can it accept any NIH grants designed for minorities as defined above?

Does anyone know of any attempts, successful or otherwise, to push this issue in an NIH application?

Charlie Hathaway

**************************************
Charles B. Hathaway, Ph.D., Director
Office of Grant Support
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1300 Morris Park Avenue
Bronx, NY 10461-1975
Phone: 718 430-3642     Fax: 718 430-8822
email: xxxxxx@aecom.yu.edu
http://www.aecom.yu.edu/ogs

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