Anticipated NIJ Fiscal Year 2023 Funding Opportunities

NIJ anticipates releasing funding opportunities in fiscal year 2023 (FY 2023) supporting the following research topics. NIJ typically releases funding opportunities beginning in the late fall. All postings are pending available FY 2023 funding and are subject to change.

Because most NIJ funding opportunities are competitive, we cannot have individual conversations with prospective applicants concerning prospective grant proposals.

Research and Evaluation on Domestic Radicalization and Violent Extremism — Grants for research and evaluation projects to advance understanding of the domestic radicalization phenomenon and evidence-based strategies for effective intervention and prevention. Topics may include: radicalization; disengagement, deradicalization, and reintegration; countering mis-, dis-, and malinformation; and investigator-proposed subjects.

Establishing a Criminal Justice Testing and Evaluation Center — A grant to host a center to identify and test justice technologies and their implementations. It will also support NIJ’s Compliance Testing Program — the national testing program for body armor and other equipment used by police and corrections — and development of NIJ testing standards for criminal justice equipment.

Research and Evaluation on School Safety — Grants for research and evaluation projects on school violence prevention and safety.

W.E.B. Du Bois Program of Research on Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Justice System — Research grants for projects to examine how observed racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system might be reduced through public policy interventions at any point during the administration of justice. 

Tribal-Researcher Capacity Building — Planning grants involving scientists working with tribal nations and organizations to develop tangible and mutually beneficial criminal or juvenile justice research studies that are rigorous and culturally appropriate; and grants to fund applications from prior year planning grant awardees to implement study proposals developed under those grants.

Graduate Research Fellowship Program — Grants for innovative doctoral dissertation research that is relevant to preventing and controlling crime and ensuring the fair and impartial administration of criminal justice in the United States. This solicitation is open to doctoral students in both the social and behavioral sciences and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

Research and Evaluation on Violence Against Women — Grants for research to support the development of objective and independent knowledge and validated tools to reduce violence against women, promote justice for victims of intimate partner violence, and enhance criminal justice responses to violence against women. Priority areas will be defined in collaboration with the Office of Violence against Women (OVW).

Research and Evaluation on Trafficking in Persons — Grants for research and evaluation to inform policy and practice to prevent and respond to trafficking in persons. Topics may include research and evaluation on human trafficking prevention and response, including the direct provision of services to victim survivors and understudied areas such as labor trafficking and estimates of human trafficking prevalence. Specific topics will be defined in collaboration with the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC).

Research and Evaluation on Victims of Crime — Grants for evaluation of programs that provide services for victims of crime, research on supporting victims of community violence, and research on financial costs of crime victimization. Specific topics will be defined in collaboration with OVC.

Research on Juvenile Justice Topics — Grants for research and evaluation projects that inform policy and practice in the field of juvenile justice. Specific topics will be defined in collaboration with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

Youth Mentoring Research and Evaluation — Grants for research aimed to inform policy and practice concerning youth mentoring programs. Specific topics will be defined in collaboration with OJJDP.

Research and Evaluation on Hate Crimes — Grants for rigorous research and evaluation projects that inform efforts to prevent and combat hate crimes and their effects, specifically related to preventing and addressing hate crimes and school-based hate crimes.

Research and Evaluation on Firearms Violence — Grants for research and program evaluation projects that inform efforts to prevent and reduce intentional, interpersonal firearm violence and mass shootings in the United States. A particular topic of interest is extreme risk protection orders.

Research and Evaluation on Jails — Grants for research on jail systems. Jails are a major point of community reentry for justice-involved populations and serve an integral role in the criminal justice system’s relationship with the larger community. Of particular interest are the connections between jails and communities and their impact on communities as well as jail correctional workforce issues.

National Study Examining Interpersonal Violence of Young Adults — A grant for a longitudinal cohort study of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration among young adults in the United States using previously developed, NIJ-funded methods. This study would include college-aged young adults who both do and do not attend college. Funding would support the methodological research and preparatory work necessary to conduct the study. Additional funding would be required for full implementation in subsequent years.

Evaluation of Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Programs — Grants in two categories. Category 1 is for provision of training and technical assistance to support evaluation efforts and violence problem analysis. Category 2 is for evaluation of FY 2023 OJP Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI) projects, and on research of other programs with a community violence focus.

Research on the Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation of Elderly Individuals — Grants for research and evaluation projects related to the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of elderly individuals. Topics may include research on those who perpetrate of elder abuse, elder polyvictimization, and elder fraud and financial exploitation. The specific topics may be refined or revised based on consultation with OVC.

Enhancing Research Capacity at Minority Serving Institutions — Grants to enhance the social and behavioral sciences and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research capacity at minority serving institutions to develop evidence that better addresses the challenges of promoting public safety and an equitable justice system for all.

Research and Evaluation on Policing Practices, Accountability Mechanisms, and Alternatives — Grants for studies in three focus areas: police practices and accountability mechanisms (e.g., early intervention systems), the offloading of police functions, and law enforcement agency and community responses to opioid overdoses. Grants would also support research and evaluation projects examining the effectiveness of police officer training on police attitudes, behaviors, and interactions with colleagues and community members, and the effectiveness of wellness programs on reducing officer stress and trauma and improving procedurally just and Constitutional policing practices. Grants may include an additional topic — law enforcement responses to the homeless — should sufficient funds be made available.

Research and Evaluation on the Administration of Justice — Grants for research and evaluation projects that provide scientific evidence to promote the fair and equitable administration of justice. In particular, with the upcoming 60^th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, NIJ is interested in projects assessing the effectiveness of various public defender models in providing equitable access to justice. Other priority topics of interest include development of the courts workforce and enhancements to court workgroups and court practices. This solicitation would be developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice.

Research and Evaluation on Correctional Culture and Climate — Grants for research and evaluation projects examining the impact and relationship of institutional culture and climate, including workforce issues such as recruitment and retention, on the wellness of both correctional staff and incarcerated individuals.

Research and Evaluation on Sentencing and Resentencing — Grants for research and evaluation projects examining the impact of sentencing and resentencing legislation, including promising practices and barriers to accessing post-conviction justice.

Research and Development in Forensic Science for Criminal Justice Purposes — Grants for foundational or applied research and development projects in forensic and investigative sciences. An NIJ forensic science research and development grant supports a discrete, specified, circumscribed project that will increase the body of knowledge to guide and inform forensic science policy and practice; or lead to the production of useful material(s), device(s), system(s), or method(s) that have the potential for forensic application.

Research and Evaluation for the Testing and Interpretation of Physical Evidence in Publicly Funded Forensic Laboratories — Grants for research and evaluation projects to identify and inform the forensic community of best practices through the evaluation of existing laboratory protocols or emerging methods. Projects should have a direct and immediate impact on laboratory efficiency and assist with policy decisions.