Graduate Research Fellowship Program in the US

Deadline: 25-Apr-23

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), National Institute of Justice (NIJ) seeks applications for funding doctoral dissertation research that is relevant to preventing and controlling crime, and ensuring the fair and impartial administration of criminal and/ or juvenile justice in the United States.

This program furthers the DOJ’s mission by increasing the pool of researchers who are engaged in providing science-based solutions to problems relevant to criminal and juvenile justice policy and practice in the United States.

The Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) program provides grants to accredited academic institutions to support outstanding doctoral students whose dissertation research is relevant to criminal and/or juvenile justice.

Goals

• The ultimate goal of this program is to increase the pool of researchers who are engaged in providing solutions to problems relevant to criminal and/or juvenile justice policy and practice in the United States. Through the GRF program, NIJ supports the research of promising doctoral students as they train to become the creators of future innovation. This is consistent with the following national research and development (R&D) priorities:
  • STEM Education and Engagement
    • The training of the American workforce, a critical component of maintaining American competitiveness, is a national priority. This program supports the training of young scientists capable of meeting future science and technology workforce demands. NIJ’s GRF program seeks to engage these emerging researchers to help meet the needs of America’s criminal and/or juvenile justice practitioners, while simultaneously developing their skills to contribute broadly to America’s research and development enterprise.

Objectives

• The objective of this solicitation is to support Ph.D. students who are engaged in research relevant to NIJ’s mission to the successful completion of their degree programs. The fellowship stipend, cost of education allowance, and research expenses allowance are intended to provide the financial resources to allow these students to devote maximum effort to the completion of their degrees.
• Deliverables and Expected Scholarly Products
• Recipients of awards made under this solicitation will be required to submit annual and final performance reports, and quarterly financial reports, to NIJ by specified deadlines (see Federal Award Administration Information section). The final deliverables for awards under this solicitation are:
• A copy of the doctoral student’s defended dissertation.
• A list of scholarly products resulting from the dissertation research, as well as products developed for broad dissemination to informal audiences.
• Such scholarly products may take the form of peer-reviewed journal articles, indexed conference abstracts, book chapters or books in the academic press, technological prototypes, software, patented inventions, or similar scientific products. Products developed for broad dissemination to informal audiences may take the form of websites, webinars, podcasts, informational documents, online tools, or other similar products.
• NIJ may forward the dissertation for public archiving or abstracting at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Virtual Library. Any request for an embargo period on public archiving of the full text dissertation, or for abstracting only with a link to a full-text resource (such as a dissertation repository), must be made to the grant manager at the time of dissertation submission.
• GRF fellows are encouraged, but are not required, to archive their dissertation data in venues appropriate to their scientific communities. Applicants are encouraged to review NIJ’s Data Archiving page for information on archiving study datasets and appropriate data repositories, including the NIJ funded National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.

Priority Areas

• NIJ will give special consideration in award decisions to proposals from Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
• MSIs include:
  • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)
  • Hispanic-serving Institutions (HSI)
  • Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU)
  • Alaska Native-serving Institutions or Native Hawaiian-serving Institutions (ANNH)
  • Predominantly Black Institutions (PBI)
  • Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving Institutions (AANAPISI)
  • Native American-serving Non-Tribal Institutions (NASNTI).

Funding Information

• Anticipated Maximum Dollar Amount of Awards $166,500.00
• Period of Performance Duration (Months) 60.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicant academic institutions are eligible to apply only if:
  • The student is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the sciences or engineering.
  • The student’s proposed dissertation research has demonstrable relevance to preventing and controlling crime, and/or ensuring the fair and impartial administration of criminal and/or juvenile justice, in the United States.

Capabilities and Competencies

• This section should describe the experience and capability of the doctoral student, the research advisor or committee chair (if applicable), and the academic environment, highlighting previous experience implementing similar research. Applicants should address:
  • The preparation and qualifications of the doctoral student.
  • The academic environment and supporting resources. Experience producing and disseminating research deliverables (publications and presentations).
  • Applicants should also outline a management plan. This should identify the people involved in the execution of the project, their specific roles, and any framework to be used for ensuring that their tasks are fulfilled.
  • Additionally, applicants should include, if applicable, a description contextualizing the proposed doctoral work relative to, or within, any other work being conducted under an existing NIJ award, which must be specifically identified.

Note: An applicant is not required to submit performance data with the application. Rather, performance measure information is included as a notification that award recipients will be required to submit performance data as part of each award’s reporting requirements. Some measures are presented as examples, while others are the exact measures that every recipient will be expected to address.

For more information, visit Grants.gov.