NIJ FY24 Research and Evaluation of Policing Practices

With this solicitation, NIJ seeks rigorous, applied evaluative research on: (1) police training; (2) police accountability policies and practices; (3) investigative practices to enhance clearance rates; and (4) police officer health and wellness programs. Successful applicants should propose the most rigorous design to answer their proposed research questions. NIJ will consider research designs that include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods designs. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and strong quasi-experimental designs are required for proposals to conduct outcome evaluations. NIJ will give special consideration to proposals with methods that include meaningful engagement with the people closest to the subject of study, including practitioners as well as community members representing crime victims, people under criminal justice supervision, and members of high-crime communities. Applicants are encouraged to propose multidisciplinary research teams to build on the complementary strengths of different methods and areas of subject matter expertise. NIJ also seeks proposals that include consideration and measurement of issues of diversity, discrimination, and bias across age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation, as applicable. Applications proposing research involving partnerships with juvenile justice, criminal justice or other agencies should include a strong letter of support, signed by an appropriate decisionmaking authority from each proposed, partnering agency. A letter of support should include the partnering agency’s acknowledgment that de-identified data derived from, provided to, or obtained through an award funded by NIJ will be archived by the grant recipient with the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the conclusion of the award. Applicants and their potential partners are encouraged to review NIJ’s data archiving guidance. If selected for an award, grantees will be expected to have a formal agreement in place with partnering agencies by January 1, 2025. That formal agreement must include a provision to meet the data archiving requirements of the award. NIJ seeks proposals that include robust, creative, and multi-pronged dissemination strategies that include strategic partnerships with organizations and associations that are best equipped to ensure that research findings lead to changes in policies and practices. Special consideration will be given to proposals that dedicate at least 15% of the requested project award funding toward implementing such strategies, as demonstrated in the “Budget Worksheet and Budget Narrative.” 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 Page 8 O-NIJ-2024-172011 others must be proposed as subrecipients. The applicant is expected to conduct the preponderance of the work proposed.