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The US National Institutes of Health approach to inclusive excellence

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in science and medicine, through changes in our funding and recruitment processes. These actions provide a blueprint for the global research community.

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Fig. 1: The challenge of biomedical research is akin to the examination of an elephant while lacking sight.
Fig. 2: Racial and ethnic representation among NIH R01-eq grantees, STEM doctoral workforce, and US population (2017, 2019 and 2020).
Fig. 3: The NIH UNITE initiative is committed to identifying and implementing targeted actions that address structural racism in the NIH scientific and non-scientific workforce; in the external biomedical workforce funded by NIH grants; and in the research that addresses health disparities, minority health and health equity.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the assistance provided by ICF Next in producing this manuscript, and to V. Rucker, the UNITE program manager, for her careful review and input regarding the final version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Office of the Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Marie A. Bernard

  2. Office of Management, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Alfred C. Johnson

  3. Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Treava Hopkins-Laboy

  4. Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Lawrence A. Tabak

Authors
  1. Marie A. Bernard
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  2. Alfred C. Johnson
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  3. Treava Hopkins-Laboy
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  4. Lawrence A. Tabak
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Contributions

Lead author duties were performed by M.A.B., with all authors contributing equally to the review and finalization of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marie A. Bernard.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Bernard, M.A., Johnson, A.C., Hopkins-Laboy, T. et al. The US National Institutes of Health approach to inclusive excellence. Nat Med 27, 1861–1864 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01532-1

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