PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Charlie D Zhou
AU  - Michael G Head
AU  - Dominic C Marshall
AU  - Barnabas J Gilbert
AU  - Majd A El-Harasis
AU  - Rosalind Raine
AU  - Henrietta O’Connor
AU  - Rifat Atun
AU  - Mahiben Maruthappu
TI  - A systematic analysis of UK cancer research funding by gender of primary investigator
AID  - 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018625
DP  - 2018 Apr 01
TA  - BMJ Open
PG  - e018625
VI  - 8
IP  - 4
4099  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/4/e018625.short
4100  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/4/e018625.full
SO  - BMJ Open2018 Apr 01; 8
AB  - Objectives To categorically describe cancer research funding in the UK by gender of primary investigator (PIs).Design Systematic analysis of all open-access data.Methods Data about public and philanthropic cancer research funding awarded to UK institutions between 2000 and 2013 were obtained from several sources. Fold differences were used to compare total investment, award number, mean and median award value between male and female PIs. Mann-Whitney U tests were performed to determine statistically significant associations between PI gender and median grant value.Results Of the studies included in our analysis, 2890 (69%) grants with a total value of £1.82 billion (78%) were awarded to male PIs compared with 1296 (31%) grants with a total value of £512 million (22%) awarded to female PIs. Male PIs received 1.3 times the median award value of their female counterparts (P<0.001). These apparent absolute and relative differences largely persisted regardless of subanalyses.Conclusions We demonstrate substantial differences in cancer research investment awarded by gender. Female PIs clearly and consistently receive less funding than their male counterparts in terms of total investment, the number of funded awards, mean funding awarded and median funding awarded.