Deadline: 4-Mar-25
Applications are now open for the Research and Evaluation Initiative Program.
Initiatives
- This NOFO invites applications under two separate initiatives, the Research and Evaluation Initiative and the Research and Evaluation Capacity-building Project.
- Research and Evaluation Initiative
- The purpose of the Research and Evaluation (R&E) Initiative is to study approaches to preventing and addressing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking
- The initiative is designed to support researcher-practitioner partnerships and a broad range of research and evaluation methods, including qualitative, mixed-method, quasi-experimental, and experimental designs. Because OVW has limited funds to support research and evaluation, this initiative prioritizes topics for which a stronger evidence base would help OVW recipients use federal funds most effectively.
- Special Initiative: Research and Evaluation Capacity-building Project
- OVW anticipates funding a special initiative: the Research and Evaluation Capacity-building Project (Capacity-building Project). This project will enhance the gender-based violence field’s ability to identify effective practices, recognize service gaps, and develop and use evidence to improve prevention efforts and responses to gender-based violence. The goal is to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among practitioners and emerging scholars and develop their skills in evidence informed decision-making.
- Research and Evaluation Initiative
Areas of Study
- OVW is interested in funding research and evaluation that will contribute to knowledge in these six areas of study.
- Justice: Ways the justice system can effectively pursue and achieve justice in cases involving gender-based violence, with justice broadly understood to include autonomy and safety for victims, accountability for offenders, procedural fairness for all, and restorative ways of healing.
- Victims’ needs: How victimization and its aftermath affect people’s lives, and what victims need to cope, heal, and achieve safety, well-being, and justice.
- Cultures, disparities, and access: Ways that cultural differences and social inequalities matter in terms of where and to whom people go for help, and whether they are able to access justice and get services that are useful to them.
- Impact: Short- and long-term impact of the criminal and civil justice systems’ responses, victim services, and other VAWA-funded interventions on victim safety and offender accountability.
- Impact: Short- and long-term impact of the criminal and civil justice systems’ responses, victim services, and other VAWA-funded interventions on victim safety and offender accountability.
- Promoting desistance and reducing recidivism: How to prevent people from continuing to use violence.
Topics for Research and Evaluation
- Evaluations of VAWA-funded interventions. “VAWA-funded intervention” refers to any activity that is funded, or could potentially be funded, through OVW grant programs to address sexual assault, domestic/dating violence, and stalking. OVW is especially interested in studying the effectiveness of interventions that cut across multiple grant programs.
- Evaluations of trainings, strategies, policies, practices, tools, and other means of fostering trauma-informed law enforcement and prosecutorial responses to sexual assault, domestic/dating violence, and stalking.
- Research and evaluation on LGBT-specific services, outreach, training, education, and prevention.
- Research and evaluation on ways of ensuring language access in responses to genderbased violence.
- Evaluation of training curricula, tools, and other technical assistance (TA) resources developed and implemented with OVW grant funds.
- Evaluations of emerging innovations for serving victims and holding offenders accountable.
- Secondary data analyses related to domestic/dating violence, sexual assault, and/or stalking.
- Research, evaluation, and data analysis related to domestic violence homicide prevention.
- Evaluations of restorative practices approaches to addressing gender-based violence, with particular interest in approaches used in Tribal communities and/or culturally specific traditional healing practices.
- Multi-site evaluation of the effectiveness of trauma-informed, victim-centered training for law enforcement funded under the Abby Honold Act Program.
Funding Information and Duration
- Expected Total Amount of Funding: $9,000,000
- Expected Award Amount(s):
- R&E Initiative: up to $500,000 (except for topic area # 10, which may be for up to $5,000,000)
- Capacity-building Project: up to $600,000
- Expected Award Period(s)
- R&E Initiative: up to 36 months (except for topic area #10, which may be between 36 and 48 months)
- Capacity-building Project: 24 months
Eligibility Criteria
- Entities that are eligible to apply to the R&E Initiative are: states and territories, units of local government, Indian Tribal governments, Tribal organizations, nonprofits (with or without 50(c)(3) status), and institutions of higher education.
- Entities that are eligible to apply to the Capacity-building Project are: nonprofits (with or without 50(c)(3) status) and institutions of higher education.
- States and Territories
- State governments, including the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands (34 U.S.C. § 12291(a)(37))
For more information, visit Grants.gov.