Signal Still funded, no longer counted: how NIH's 2025 award reviews changed what the government counts as minority health research

Summary

The paper traces what happened after NIH required removal of 'DEI language' from awards in 2025. Among 37,790 continuing awards, projects whose summaries kept population names retained the minority-health category 99.4 percent of the time. Projects whose summaries dropped such names retained it only 15.7 percent of the time. Funding continued in these projects, so the change affected how research was counted rather than whether it was funded. Blinded reviewers judged 42 of a random 50 sampled losses to meet the category definition. The authors call this 'uncounted science.'