Watson Naomi, Kunst Gudrun
King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences, King's College London, London, UK.
Perioper Med (Lond). 2025 Mar 13;14(1):29. doi: 10.1186/s13741-025-00505-z.
The National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia (NIAA) is a major UK-based funder of academic anaesthesia and perioperative medicine. It holds two grant rounds per year. Since 2019, research outputs have been collected via a widely used online platform, enabling assessment of grant impact. The aim of our study was to report the characteristics of funding awards and awardees, including equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) data.
We conducted a retrospective analysis of NIAA grant data submitted by award holders (2019-2023) and assessed EDI characteristics for all applicants and recipients, collected since 2022. The primary objective was to assess grants by geographical distribution, type of institutions and research category. Secondary objectives included preliminary grant outputs and EDI characteristics of applicants and awardees.
Between 2019 and 2023, 63 grants totalling £2,488,857 were awarded. Grants were well-distributed across the UK and Ireland, with London-based research groups receiving the most (n = 16, 25%) and securing £825,591 (33% of total funding). University-affiliated institutions received 38 grants (60%), while 25 grants (40%) were awarded to teaching and non-teaching hospitals. By research type, pre-clinical studies received 41% of funding (n = 26), followed by clinical observational (24%, n = 15), clinical interventional (14%, n = 9), and epidemiological studies (13%, n = 8). Fifty-one publications have been reported by 20 principal investigators across 30 journals, with a total of 1723 citations and a median of 17 citations per paper. More than half (n = 28, 55%) were published in journals with an impact factor of 7 or higher. Most applicants were white, heterosexual males, but no EDI characteristic was significantly associated with application success.
NIAA grants were geographically diverse and supported a broad range of research types. Most funded research was published in high-impact journals. However, a notable lack of diversity was observed among applicants, both successful and unsuccessful. Future NIAA strategies should focus on increasing diversity and representation among grant applicants.
英国国家学术麻醉研究所（NIAA）是英国学术麻醉和围手术期医学的主要资助机构。该机构每年进行两轮资助申请。自2019年以来，研究成果通过一个广泛使用的在线平台收集，以便评估资助的影响。我们研究的目的是报告资助奖项和获奖者的特征，包括平等、多样性和包容性（EDI）数据。
我们对获奖者提交的NIAA资助数据（2019 - 2023年）进行了回顾性分析，并评估了自2022年以来收集的所有申请人和受助者的EDI特征。主要目标是按地理分布、机构类型和研究类别评估资助项目。次要目标包括初步的资助成果以及申请人和获奖者的EDI特征。
在2019年至2023年期间，共授予63项资助，总计2488857英镑。资助在英国和爱尔兰各地分布良好，总部位于伦敦的研究团队获得的资助最多（n = 16，25%），获得资金825591英镑（占总资金的33%）。大学附属机构获得38项资助（60%），而25项资助（40%）授予了教学医院和非教学医院。按研究类型划分，临床前研究获得41%的资金（n = 26），其次是临床观察性研究（24%，n = 15）、临床干预性研究（14%，n = 9）和流行病学研究（13%，n = 8）。20位主要研究者在30种期刊上发表了51篇论文，共获得1723次引用，每篇论文的引用中位数为17次。超过一半（n = 28，55%）发表在影响因子为7或更高的期刊上。大多数申请人是白人、异性恋男性，但没有EDI特征与申请成功显著相关。
NIAA的资助在地理上具有多样性，并支持广泛的研究类型。大多数获得资助的研究发表在高影响力期刊上。然而，在成功和未成功的申请人中都明显缺乏多样性。NIAA未来的策略应侧重于增加资助申请人的多样性和代表性。
