A few thoughts about research funding pertaining to systemic racism, structural bias, and inequity in health sciences and related disciplines...

As a qualitative researcher with a PhD in education, finding and securing funding from agencies that fund health research has been challenging. I've been repeatedly advised to avoid using words like #socialjustice in my grants.

Although I have had success from some sources, I have also encountered reviewers who clearly did not understand my methods and yet decided they had enough expertise to review the grant anyways. These reviews are usually from reviewers unfamiliar with critical epistemology.

For example, I recently had a reviewer state: "I am unclear how well-established this model of analysis is...a more thorough explanation and an approximate idea of what the authors envision is a reasonable number of participants for this part of the study would be helpful."

I am hopeful that we will see an increase in funding to research systemic racism, bias, and equity in health sciences and related disciplines. However, we MUST ensure that reviewers are sufficiently qualified and informed before we embark on any requests for proposals.

Research on these topics benefits from an interdisciplinary approach that requires different ways of seeing. Not all research can be approached from a positivist orientation. Not all research should be quantitative. Not every construct can be easily 'measured.'

So as I sit down to prepare a new grant in the midst of our collective awakening to the racism that some in our communities have been experiencing for generations, I would like to challenge our granting bodies to approach the process in a much more critical and inclusive way.