匿名资助提案以减少偏见

2021 年，美国只有 11 所大学获得了所有授予大学和学院的联邦研究经费的 25%。在这些顶级研究资助大学中，其中 9 所位于东海岸或西海岸，只有密歇根大学和大学匹兹堡代表该国中部。

Despite receiving 25% of all federal research funding awarded to universities and colleges in 2021, just 11 U.S. universities are responsible for distributing the funds. Of these top research-funded universities, nine of them are located on either the East or West Coast. Only University of Michigan and University of Pittsburgh are representing the middle of the country. This trend has been consistent since 2010.

尽管 2021 年授予大学和学院的联邦研究经费有 25%，但只有 11 所美国大学负责分配这些资金。在这些顶尖的研究资助大学中，有九所位于东海岸或西海岸。只有密歇根大学和匹兹堡大学代表了中部地区。这一趋势自2010年以来一直保持一致。

However, there are strong research programs at universities throughout the U.S. So why does such a small set of universities receive such a large portion of federal research funding? Is there bias toward these institutions or a hesitancy to criticize proposals from elite universities? Whatever the cause may be, the problem extends beyond federal research funding and also affects foundations that support research.

然而，美国各地的大学都有强大的研究项目，那么为什么这么一小部分大学却获得了如此大一部分的联邦研究经费呢？是否对这些机构存在偏见，或者对批评精英大学的提案犹豫不决？无论原因是什么，这个问题超出了联邦研究经费的范围，也影响到支持研究的基金会。

I’m the executive director of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, where we provide basic science research grants with the vision of supporting young scientists today for tomorrow’s breakthrough discoveries. Our mission is to support “young scientists, and especially those that don’t yet have the clout to win major research grants.” One of my main objectives is to ensure that we solicit and evaluate all proposals using an inclusive, fair, and unbiased process. The Beckman Foundation’s success depends on our ability to identify and fund new exciting and innovative research ideas, and we believe that biases in our processes can impede us in accomplishing our mission.

我是阿诺德和梅布尔·贝克曼基金会的执行董事，该基金会提供基础科学研究资助，其愿景是支持今天的年轻科学家实现明天的突破性发现。我们的使命是支持“年轻科学家，特别是那些尚不具备赢得重大研究资助的影响力的科学家”。我的主要目标之一是确保我们采用包容、公平和公正的流程来征求和评估所有提案。贝克曼基金会的成功取决于我们识别和资助新的令人兴奋和创新的研究想法的能力，我们相信我们流程中的偏见可能会阻碍我们完成使命。

Like many basic science funding organizations, we rely on peer review to evaluate and recommend the research projects that we consider for funding. One challenge in the basic sciences is the concentration of grant funding at relatively few U.S. institutions, and my colleagues and I have been concerned that our traditional peer review processes may be perpetuating this concentration.

与许多基础科学资助组织一样，我们依靠同行评审来评估和推荐我们考虑资助的研究项目。基础科学面临的一个挑战是拨款资金集中在相对较少的美国机构，我和我的同事一直担心我们传统的同行评审程序可能会延续这种集中。

Admittedly there are many benefits to continue funding established institutions that have made the investments in the infrastructure, research teams, and specialized equipment to conduct advanced research. But this also raises some concerns: Are we stifling research progress when only those with the access and connections to these elite institutions are able to participate? How many great ideas and breakthroughs do we ignore because they aren’t from the “traditional” places? Do the well-resourced institutions become less innovative if they get an advantage through our peer-review system for continued funding?

诚然，继续资助那些在基础设施、研究团队和专业设备上进行投资以进行高级研究的知名机构有很多好处。但这也引起了一些担忧：当只有那些有权访问这些精英机构并与其有联系的人才能参与时，我们是否会扼杀研究进展？有多少伟大的想法和突破被我们忽视，因为它们不是来自“传统”地方？如果资源充足的机构通过我们的同行评审系统获得持续资助的优势，它们的创新能力是否会降低？

Of course, as a foundation focused on basic science, we turned to the data to examine the evidence and test our hypothesis. Starting in 2019, we did a detailed analysis of our own grant awards at the Beckman Foundation, and we saw a similar concentration of funding in our awards to the same institutions year after year. We asked ourselves: Are we identifying and funding the best scientific ideas, or does the institutional affiliation of an applicant unduly factor into our review processes?

当然，作为一个专注于基础科学的基金会，我们转向数据来检验证据并检验我们的假设。从 2019 年开始，我们对贝克曼基金会的资助金额进行了详细分析，发现我们的资助金额年复一年地集中在同一机构。我们问自己：我们是否正在识别和资助最好的科学想法，或者申请人的机构隶属关系是否不适当地影响到我们的审查过程？

This question led us change the proposal review process we used for our 2020 applications to a dual-anonymized structure to investigate if we saw any implicit bias in our reviews towards prestigious institutions. We then tracked our application statistics for the next four years of applications and saw a shift away from the prestigious institutions that enabled more applications from diverse universities to advance in our selection process. Our complete study methodology and findings are published in a 2024 eLife article.

这个问题促使我们将 2020 年申请所用的提案审查流程改为双匿名结构，以调查我们的审查中是否发现对知名机构存在任何隐性偏见。然后，我们跟踪了未来四年的申请统计数据，发现著名机构的转变使得更多来自不同大学的申请能够在我们的选拔过程中取得进展。我们完整的研究方法和结果发表在 2024 年 eLife 文章中。

In implementing this change, we required our applicants themselves to remove any gender, race, or institutional affiliation identifiers from their proposals. The reviewers were only provided with the anonymized research proposal without any supporting information about the applicant themselves.

在实施这一更改时，我们要求申请人本人从其提案中删除任何性别、种族或机构隶属关系标识符。审稿人只收到匿名的研究计划，没有任何关于申请人本身的支持信息。

Interestingly, we found a reduction in the relative advantage of applicants from the more prestigious institutions to advance in our review process after the anonymization step. Before anonymization, the proposals from elite institutions had 1.5 times greater-than-average chance of being selected to advance for further consideration, and after anonymization this advantage to advance dropped to only 1.2 times the average.

有趣的是，我们发现，在匿名步骤之后，来自较有声望的机构的申请人在进入我们的审核过程中的相对优势有所下降。在匿名化之前，来自精英机构的提案被选中进入进一步考虑的机会是平均水平的1.5倍，而在匿名化之后，这一优势下降到只有平均水平的1.2倍。

This shift in which proposals advance in our reviews brings forward more excellent scientific ideas from those not at these elite institutions to be included in the final stages of our review process to be considered for funding. The anonymization resulted in a reduction, but not elimination, of the advantage that the prestigious institutions had in our review process, likely indicating that the prestigious institutions do have an intrinsic advantage: Their researchers and resources put forward above-average and compelling research proposals. However, our finding that the likelihood for these proposals to advance was reduced showed us that these advantages of being associated with certain prestigious institutions were given undue influence in our review processes.

这种在我们的审查中提出提案的转变带来了来自这些精英机构以外的人的更多优秀的科学想法，这些想法将被纳入我们审查过程的最后阶段，以考虑资助。匿名化导致知名机构在我们的审核过程中所具有的优势减少，但并没有消除，这可能表明知名机构确实具有内在优势：他们的研究人员和资源提出了高于平均水平且令人信服的研究建议。然而，我们发现这些提案获得推进的可能性降低，这表明与某些著名机构合作的这些优势在我们的审查过程中受到了不当影响。

Ensuring that our review processes are fair and inclusive to all of our applicants regardless of their institution was the goal of our process change, but we also realized the additional benefits that the anonymized proposals were easier to read and evaluate, which reduces reviewer fatigue. During the review discussions we stayed focused on the innovation and the science in the proposal without additional discussions of perceived mentor status, publication rates, journal impact factors, and other ancillary topics.

确保我们的审核流程对所有申请人（无论其机构如何）都是公平和包容的，这是我们流程变更的目标，但我们也意识到匿名提案更容易阅读和评估的额外好处，从而减少了审核者的疲劳。在评审讨论期间，我们始终专注于提案中的创新和科学，没有额外讨论感知的导师地位、发表率、期刊影响因素和其他辅助主题。

Like all big systemic challenges, there are many possible solutions being explored. While we have focused on the dual-anonymized review approach, other

与所有重大系统性挑战一样，我们正在探索许多可能的解决方案。虽然我们专注于双重匿名审查方法，但其他