NIJ FY22 Research and Development in Forensic Science for Criminal Justice Purposes

OJP is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights and racial equity, increases access to justice, supports crime victims and individuals impacted by the justice system, strengthens community safety and protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community.

With this solicitation, NIJ seeks proposals for rigorous basic or applied research and development projects. An NIJ forensic science research and development grant supports a discrete, specified, circumscribed project that will:

1. Increase the body of knowledge to guide and inform forensic science policy and practice; or

2. Lead to the production of useful material(s), device(s), system(s), or method(s) that have the potential for forensic application.

The intent of this program is to direct the findings of basic scientific research; foster research and development in broader scientific fields applicable to forensic science; and support ongoing forensic science research toward the development of highly-discriminating, accurate, reliable, cost-effective, and rapid methods for the identification, analysis, and interpretation of forensic evidence for criminal justice purposes. Projects should address the challenges and needs of the forensic science community, including but not limited to, the operational needs discussed at NIJ's FY 2020 Forensic Science Technology Working Group (TWG) meeting, which may be found on NIJ.OJP.gov. Additional research needs of the forensic science community can be found at the Organization of Scientific Area Committees website. Although the goals and deliverables of proposed projects are not required to result in immediate solutions to the posted challenges and needs, proposals should, at a minimum, address the foundational work that will lead to eventual solutions.

Applications proposing research involving partnerships with criminal justice or other agencies should include a strong letter of support, signed by an appropriate decision-making authority from each proposed, partnering agency. A letter of support should include the partnering agency's acknowledgement that de-identified data derived from, provided to, or obtained through this project will be archived by the grant recipient in accordance with their data archiving plan (see Data Archiving Plan under "Application and Submission Information"). If selected for award, grantees will be expected to have a formal agreement in place with partnering agencies by January 1, 2023. That formal agreement must include a provision to meet the data archiving requirements of the award.

In the case of partnerships that will involve the use of federal award funds by multiple partnering agencies to carry out the proposed project, only one entity/partnering agency may be the applicant (as is the case with any application submitted in response to this solicitation); any others must be proposed as subrecipients.