NIJ FY25 Graduate Research Fellowship Program Webinar

Serena Roche: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As you may already know, the National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs and is the research, evaluation and technology agency of the US Department of Justice. NIJ is dedicated to using science to improve knowledge and understanding of criminal justice issues that affect communities throughout the country.

Today's webinar, NIJ Fiscal Year 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship, is presented by NIJ’s program managers, Greg Dutton and Megan Chambers, who will discuss the NOFO and answer any questions about the application process. Before getting started, we would like to go through a few housekeeping items. Please note that today's webinar will be recorded. If you are using a computer and need to adjust your audio settings at the bottom of your screen, click on the drop down arrow unmute button to adjust as needed. If you are still having an issue within this icon, you can request that Webex call your phone directly. You can submit your questions at any time, which will be answered at the end during a Q&A session. To submit your questions at the bottom right of your screen, click the three dots and select Q&A. Be sure to send your questions to all panelists. Closed captioning is available. The closed caption button will be visible in the bottom left corner. Thank you again for joining us. Now let's turn things over to Greg and Megan.

Gregory Dutton: All right. Thank you. My name is Greg Dutton. I'm a program manager at NIJ.

And I'm here with my colleague Megan. So it's our pleasure to talk about NIJ’s graduate research fellowship program. So, in the webinar today, we have a lot to go over. First we'll give you kind of a broad look at the program, what its goals are, short program history. Then we'll get into the details, what the program offers, specifics about eligibility. We'll cover a few items that are new for those of you of who have followed the program before. We'll highlight the new things, and then we'll get into details of how to apply. And finally, at the end, we'll do a Q&A. And so as we go through the webinar, if you have any questions that you think of, please put them into the Q&A box and we will bring them up at the end of the program.

So we have a QR code here that goes to the GRF program page. We encourage you to go there. There's a lot of resources there. So for those of you who are not familiar already within NIJ, we are the research and development agency of the US DOJ. So we are a science funding agency within the Office of Justice Programs in DOJ.

So if you hear us talking about OJP, or you see a lot of the application materials mention OJP, that's just our parent agency. NIJ’s mission is to bring science to improving knowledge and understanding of matters related to crime and justice in the US. So we do that primarily through funding external research through grant programs. The program that we're going to talk about today is NIJ’s graduate research fellowship program.

The goal of GRF is to support the development of new researchers who are tackling problems related to crime and justice in the US. So we do that by funding doctoral students at their home institutions to the completion of their degrees. So the idea is to support you to do your dissertation research that put all your focus to completing your program and becoming an independent researcher who is doing research related to our criminal justice mission.

This is a look at the recent history of GRF. So GRF is probably NIJ’s longest running and broadest program. I think it was initially authorized at NIJ’s beginning in 1968. This shows you a look at the GRF program volume in recent years. So in 2015, we instituted two programs. One program to specifically try to get more applicants to GRF in physical science, life science and engineering programs because they were underrepresented.

By 2020 we had a good mix. So we brought the program back together. So now anyone in any field of study can apply to the same GRF program. So I should say, the program has increased the number the pool of applicants and has become a relatively competitive program.

So I think last year, in 2024, the success rate was about 16%, which is on par with other federal fellowship programs. But this is a competitive program. On the right we show the mix of fields of study that we've funded since 2012. And I think you can see we've got a pretty good, fair mix between social sciences and the hard sciences and engineering.

And we funded over 200 fellows from over 80 institutions. So just shows you kind of the scale of the program.

Also to get a more specific look at the range of fields of study that we funded, this is a list of the degree programs from the 2024 GRF fellows. So, if you take a look at these, I think you can see there's a lot of social science, physical science, computer science and engineering.

Your degree field might be here. It might not be. This just gives you a sense. So you can go to the program page and look up specifically who those fellows were from these degree fields and get a sense of what they're doing.

And again, I'm going to put you back to the GRF program page. This kind of is a central resource that we put all of our, all of our important documents and information at. So, we've got frequently asked questions there. So that'll be the first place to look. Feel free to ask all the questions that, you know, you come up with today.

But if something isn't answered in the webinar, or another question comes up, you can go back to that FAQ on the program page. There's also a link to past fellows so you can see what's been funded in the past. And most importantly, there's a link to the funding opportunity at the top. So that is the current notice of funding opportunity.

We call them NOFOs. And this is the currently open NOFO for GRF, opened on March 25th. Closes May 27th. So this is the document that has all the specific details about eligibility. Are you eligible? What are the terms of the fellowship? What do you need specifically to apply? So this is the authoritative place for, to look for all those details.

We expect to fund about eight new fellows this year. So that's down a little bit. So, we do expect it to be a competitive award year for GRF. 

Give you a sense of the timeline for this funding cycle. We posted a little late, so we have, kind of a compressed timeline. You'll hear us talking about, and you saw the title of it, The Fiscal Year 2025 GRF. So 2025 is past, but that's the year that the funding is assigned to.

So that's why we call it 2025. The opportunity is open now. There are two deadlines. And we'll talk about that specifically later in the webinar. May 19th and May 27th. May 27th is the deadline to have all the application materials in. We expect to turn around a relatively quick review and awarding within a few months after that.

And we do expect award announcements to be made by September 30th. January 1st, 2027, is the earliest date that the fellowship can start. But there are reasons that the funding might not be available at that date, and we'll talk about that later. But that's the earliest that you could expect a fellowship to begin. I'm going to pass the program over now to my colleague, Megan.

Megan Chambers: Thank you, Greg. So the program has just a few simple eligibility requirements. The student needs to be enrolled full time in a research doctorate program. The student can be at any stage in their graduate career, as long as they're currently enrolled at the program at the time of application. The fellowship is meant to support the student during their research, writing and dissertation defense stages.

In addition, the dissertation topic needs to be relevant to preventing and controlling crime, protecting the border, enforcing the law, promoting public safety or ensuring the fair and impartial administration of criminal or juvenile justice in the United States. So for the university, the university must be an accredited institution in the United States or its territories. And it is the official applicant, and they will apply on behalf of the student.

So this means that the student and the university need to work together to assemble and submit an application.

So what are the terms of the fellowship? The fellowship provides up to $60,000 per year for up to three years of funding support within a five-year period, with some simple budget categories. So $41,000 annually can be put towards student salary and fringe benefits. Up to $16,000 annually for a cost of education allowance, and this can include tuition and fees or university expenses. And then $3,000 annually for research expenses and so I'll discuss that in a little bit more detail shortly.

So the intent is to give the student the financial support to allow them to devote their full efforts to completing their dissertation. And we've tried to make our fellowship terms competitive with other federal funders. So next we'll discuss some of the specific allowable cost items under these budget categories. Because the award amounts are limited, we want to make sure that the budgets make the best use of the funds to support the student and their research.

So the first budget category is salary and fringe. This can only support the student fellow and can include fringe or separate health insurance. And we recommend that the full amount be requested.

So the second budget allowance is for the cost of education. This can include tuition, fees and university administrative costs, and this is at the discretion of the university. And this is up to $16,000 per year permitted. But if the university elects to not use the entire $16,000 allowance, the remainder can generally be used under the research expenses category.

So that's the third budget allowance is for up to $3,000 per year for research expenses. These are cost items that directly support the students’ research or scholarly professional activities. And so this includes a number of allowable items which are shown here on this slide. And so this is a unique allowance that other federal fellowship programs may not provide.

This might give you an opportunity to purchase or acquire samples that you otherwise wouldn't have access to or to travel to conferences to present your research. And so this is not a complete comprehensive list, but other allowable costs may be permitted if they support the goals of the program. And so you'll need to work with your university to help write this portion of the budget.

So there are a few other terms for the fellowship awards. So these are one-time awards that cannot be supplemented with additional funds. So that means that the total amount of support you anticipate needing must be requested upfront. If you're certain that you'll finish and defend in 18 months, you might want to request just the 18 months of funding.

But if you're not sure, then it's good and safe to just request the full three years. We recognize that, you know, research is unpredictable and that there's no, there is no competitive advantage for low balling. There are just a few annual requirements to stay in good standing. So the first is, you know, annual performance reports where you report the progress of your project and you let us know of any publications that you've published or any presentations that you've given at conferences.

You also need to do verification of continued enrollment as well as a letter from your committee chair confirming that you are making adequate progress on your project. And then at the end of the project, the final deliverables for the fellowship include a copy of your defended dissertation, a list of scholarly products that you published, like publications and journal articles, and then a link to where the data for your project is archived in an appropriate repository.

And I'm going to hand things back over to Greg.

Gregory Dutton: All right. Thanks, Megan. So I wanted to highlight a few of the new things this year for those of you who are already familiar with the program. One big thing is that we've clarified eligibility. And it's broad. So now all research doctorates, not just Ph.D. degrees, are eligible, with the exception that humanities and visual and performing arts degree programs are not eligible.

So it's quite a broad eligibility. The key thing for us, of course, is that your dissertation project has relevance to our criminal justice mission. And in terms of that, the research relevance requirement now includes protecting the border, enforcing the law and promoting public safety. So you'll see all of this in the NOFO. Merit review criteria, so these are the criteria that external reviewers use to rate the proposals, are now identical to all other programs. And we'll talk about those also later in the webinar.

Publications and data. So data management sharing and archiving plan is now required with the application. There's been more clarification of just what that should be. So I encourage you to look at the NOFO and follow the links to the NIJ guidance. Another thing new for fiscal year 2025 awards is that author accepted manuscripts of peer review publications that result from the grant projects must be deposited in a public access repository. And associated data must be made accessible, according to the data management, sharing and archiving plan. Proposal formatting, we have reduced the page limit to eight pages for GRF. And finally, the other thing that I should note that I forgot to put on the slide is that there is now a minimum allowed project period of 12 months.

So GRF project periods of less than 12 months are no longer eligible. We found that the administrative burden on NIJ and the university of trying to clear the conditions on that and get that project started just didn't make those short projects feasible. So if you think that you are less than 12 months out for your defense, you might think about reconsidering whether GRF is right for you. I'm going to bring it back to Megan.

Megan Chambers: All right. So, we gave a lot of information. So if you are contemplating applying for the fellowship, there are some steps that you need to take. So the first is to review the NOFO itself. And so that's the document Greg was referring to. It's the official document with all the specific requirements to verify that you are eligible.

Next thing to do is, you know, contact your university's grants office. This is usually an office that helps people apply for external research funding. And you want to let them know that you intend to apply and you need to ask for their help submitting. Every university will have an office dedicated to helping people affiliated with the university apply for federal grants.

It might be an OSP office, an OSR office, and there might even be a dedicated office to fellowships as well. But you just need to find yours and get in touch with them. And so then the next thing would be to start putting all of the elements of the application together. And so, you know, the biggest piece is going to be, you know, writing that program narrative.

The next is going to be, you know, asking for that letter of support from your chair or advisor early. Make sure you give them enough time to write it, and then getting your enrollment verification and transcripts, because you need to make sure that you have both your undergraduate and graduate transcripts.

Okay. So okay. Go back one slide. Thank you. Okay. So now for the application submission process itself. So the university must submit the application for you. Students cannot apply as individuals. You will need to give them a lot of the documentations for the application. But they will submit it. NIJ has a two-step submission process.

This is really more of an issue for the university than the student, but I'm going to say them anyways. So the first step is that submission of the SF-424 at Grants.gov. This is the standard form for declaring a request for federal assistance. The deadline for this is May 19th. The second step is submission of the complete application package at JustGrants, which is DOJ’s grant system.

And this includes all of the critical application elements that I'll talk about in a second. And the deadline for this is May 27th. So in order to meet those deadlines, your university OSP office will probably have their own internal deadlines for when they need all the documents from you. And so it's important for you to get in touch with them early to find out what those deadlines are and when they need everything by.

So there are six critical application elements that are required as a part of the application package. And an application missing any of these won't go forward for further review. And so those are listed on the slide. They include the proposal narrative, the budget web form, verification of current enrollment, undergraduate and graduate transcripts, statement of support and a CV resident or bio sketch.

So make sure you look to NOFO for the specific requirements and work with the university to assemble all these documents before the deadline. There are other application elements that aren't required as part of the application package, but they're going to help the reviewers and NIJ assess your application. And not providing them with the application can delay the release of fellowship funds, so it's in your best interest to include them if you can.

So note that human subjects protection and privacy forms are needed, even though they might not be specific to your applicable project. And to make sure you check the NOFO for all the other elements that may apply.

And so there are some other things that are important, but they are not required at the time of application. And so those two things are the dissertation topic approval, and if you do have human subjects, you will need IRB approval. And so, if you have these when you apply, that's great. Go ahead and submit them. But they're not required at the time of application.

But if you do receive a fellowship, you must complete these before the fellowship funds will become available to you.

And you know, it's also, here's another resource, in addition to the GRF program page and the FAQs, because this is also a great resource for all applicants and grantees under NIJ programs. This is where you can find information and details about our NIJ requirements for human subjects protection and privacy. And there's also links to these pages in the NOFO as well.

And I'm going to throw things back over to Greg one more time.

Gregory Dutton: All right. Thank you. Okay, so let's say you have looked at the NOFO. You've decided that you are going to apply. You've written your proposal, you've taken all the time to put all of the application elements together. And you've submitted an application. What happens next? So first thing is that your application goes to internal review by the NIJ to review for eligibility and to make sure that all the critical elements that are required are included so that everything's there for us to send it along for merit review.

So make sure that you demonstrate clearly in your proposal that your project meets those research relevance elements, that it's relevant to our criminal justice mission. And then secondly that you've got all of the application documents that are required, included. So, once we've determined that everything is good to go, then, we assemble groups of external experts to review the merit of your proposals. So for GRF these are academics. So they are like the people who are your advisers. So we assemble panels of reviewers that are appropriate to the topic areas. So we don't have a single, overarching GRF panel. We assign applications, depending on their field of study, to appropriate groups of reviewers.

So it definitely helps us to make sure that it goes to the right groups of reviewers if you include your degree program field on the title page of your proposal. So these reviewers are going to be reading your proposal and your entire application package. And they're going to be rating it against the merit review criteria.

So again, this year for GRF, these are the same as NIJ’s default criteria for all and NIJ research programs this year. So you can see the relative weights that are given to each of these. Project design and implementation is by far the largest weight. So obviously, you know, you need to put the most effort into making sure that you've got a strong research design and that you clearly convey that. As you write your proposal just think about the other review elements that the reviewers will be considering, and make sure that your proposal gives them enough information to, you know, adequately review your project against those criteria.

In addition, NIJ has several agency priority areas this year. NIJ will provide priority consideration to applicants that propose directly supporting law enforcement operations, including immigration law enforcement operations, combating violent crime, supporting services to American citizens, protecting American children and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault.

So if your project supports one of those priority, or one or more, of those priority areas, definitely note that in your proposal. And a reminder, this is one of many factors that NIJ considers in making funding decisions. And how those award decisions are made, merit review is a primary factor. But decisions are made by the NIJ director, who can take into account those ratings as well as other factors, including those priority factors that we just discussed.

And typically award announcements are made by the end of September and October. And I think now we are likely to meet that timeline for GRF at least. So you should plan on being notified of an award or not receiving an award by the end of September.

A few tips that so, you know, we've been getting these applications for quite a few years from people. These are some of the things that we think are helpful. Take a look on the program page of past fellows just to get a sense of the kinds of topics that have been funded in the past.

And it doesn't mean that your topic, if it doesn't seem like those others, couldn't be funded, if as long as it fits the research relevance. But that might give you a sense of what we've funded in the past. This next one is very important. Make sure to clearly articulate how your proposed research is relevant to those criminal justice research relevance topics. That's important. Include preliminary results if you have them.

We realize not everybody is necessarily at that stage of research. If you are, that certainly helps the reviewers get a good sense of the feasibility of your work. If you're not at that stage, then, of course, you're not. And I should say again, we do fund projects for students at all stages of their degree programs.

Ask other people to take a look at your proposal. So there's kind of a short timeline I realize this year especially. So get writing early and, you know, this is true for anything that you write, it always helps to have someone take a look and give their feedback. So, peers and advisors, ask them to take a look at it.

It might make sense to have somebody who is maybe close to the topic of study that your proposal is on as well as someone who's a little bit more distant so that you can get a sense of it if it's, you know, readable for close experts as well as experts who are maybe not so well versed in that specific field.

And, you know, get to work now. If you plan to apply, get working now on writing your proposal and assembling all of those elements. Again, we encourage you to visit the program page and look at the FAQs there. A reminder again now, if you have any questions now, please put them into the Q&A and we will get to those.

But afterwards you may find questions might be answered already on the FAQs on the program page. This webinar will be recorded, and a recording and a transcript will be posted probably within a few days. So you can look for that. Otherwise, if you have questions that are not addressed at the end of this webinar and then aren't on the program FAQs on the web, if you have any questions, you can send them to the OJP Response Center here.

And it's also listed in the NOFO. So we are at the end of the webinar part, and we're going to open it up and we're going to start addressing questions. We're going to be reading the questions. We have a set that people had sent us before the webinar. So we're going to start with those.

And then we are going to start working through the questions that you have put into the Q&A. So Megan is going to help me get through these as well. So we're going to start with some of the questions that were already submitted beforehand.

Megan Chambers: Okay. The questions. So, we have some questions that were submitted about eligibility. So can students apply who are already enrolled in a doctoral program and, you know, in their dissertation proposal phases? Yes, they are eligible, as well as people who, if you have a master's degree and are attending a different university for your Ph.D., you are also eligible to apply. We have a question, are there any other stipulations regarding applicant eligibility aside from those regarding whether the proposal is in line with NIJ’s mission?

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. So look at the NOFO for the details on that. For the most part, if you're enrolled in a qualifying program, and your topic is relevant to criminal justice, then for the most part you're eligible. But look at the NOFO for specifics. We had a question,

Megan Chambers: do we fund social science research? Definitely. We fund social science research that's relevant to those criminal justice topic areas. There's also a few questions, you know, about what we qualify as a full time Ph.D. student.

Gregory Dutton: Yes. So we had a question about full time versus part time. So, and we don't have, our own policy on what constitutes full time enrollment. We leave that to the university.

But we recognize that sometimes for students, say near the end of their degree program, you're actually required to enroll for fewer credits because it's cheaper for the program. And we recognize that. But if you are enrolled part time, but you expect to be enrolled full time by the time the fellowship would begin, then you would be eligible.

But in that case, you should include a letter from the university stating that, and that actually is a question that is in the FAQ on the program page. So it's another plug to look at those FAQs.

We had some questions, about the reviewers. The review panels. And I think I already mentioned this. So they're asking how many social scientists we have on our panels. What proportion of the panel members are hard science, social science. So again, we don't have a single panel that's reviewing all the proposals. The proposals will, be reviewed by smaller panels of appropriate reviewers.

So social scientists will be reviewing social science proposals and so on.

We had some questions about the relation of the program to NSFs programs. There is no relationship. So this is purely a DOJ program, no relation to any other agencies. We got a few questions, people asking if their specific dissertation topics were relevant and eligible. And I understand everybody always wants to ask that just to make sure.

But unfortunately, you know, before we read a full proposal, we can't make that determination. So we leave it to you to read those research relevance topics and determine for yourself if it fits that. We are not looking to exclude people based on those. I encourage you to, you know, give it to someone else. Give it to, you know, your advisors and peers and say, you know, “do you think that my proposal meets these topics,” to get a sense.

But, yeah, unfortunately, we can't give specific feedback as to eligibility of specific topics.

Is GRF funding renewable? Megan mentioned this. No, this is a one-time award. So they can't be renewed or supplemented. So you need to ask for the full amount that you may need at the outset. So up to three years are possible, you know, depending on your timeline. So, but you need to, you need to request it all at the outset.

And I want to highlight again that project periods of less than 12 months, and this is in the NOFO, are no longer eligible. So if your timeline is shorter than that then GRF is probably not for you.

So let's go to some other questions.

Megan Chambers: I was going to say I'll read some questions from the chat. We have quite a few. All right. So a couple about transcripts. Do you need original transcripts, or are unofficial transcripts sufficient?

Gregory Dutton: Unofficial transcripts are okay.

Megan Chambers: Okay.

Gregory Dutton: Remember to include both undergrad and grant transcripts. Yeah.

Megan Chambers: Will people get reviewer comments back whether or not they are funded. So if they are funded or not funded, can they get the reviewer comments back?

Gregory Dutton: Yes. Everybody gets the reviewer comments back. We send them to the student applicant and the university. Yeah.

Megan Chambers: Couple with regard to formatting.

So is there a minimum font size or preferred font or double space requirements?

Gregory Dutton: So if you look at the GRF NOFO, there are no specific font size or spacing requirements. So we leave that to you to think about what would be a pleasing format for reviewers to read. So, but no, there are no specific font or spacing requirements.

Megan Chambers: Can we give a little bit more elaboration to what reviewers might be looking for when assessing capabilities and competencies?

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. So, since this is a student fellowship project, it's mostly going to focus on the student. So it'll be, you know, the background of the student. It's going to be, you know, looking at their transcripts. I think in the NOFO there, I think there's some more detail in the program narrative section kind of guiding you on what to think about, including and hitting about your preparation, your educational background and then also at the university. So the academic environment that you're in. So, the advisor, the department, university, facilities and resources. Yeah. Take a look at the NOFO under program narrative. Yeah.

Megan Chambers: Now, the question, is it mandatory to have our committee decided while submitting the proposal? This is for people primarily in the initial stage of their Ph.D.

Gregory Dutton: Yeah, no, it's not. So you just need to be in your program. You don't necessarily have to have a committee already to apply and be awarded. The fellowship funds won't be available until you have a committee and your topic has been approved.

So, so you can apply at any stage, after your, in your program. But keep in mind that, you know, you can have the fellowship. It'll kind of be on hold on ice until your topic is approved. And typically when you, you know, have a committee formed. Yeah.

Megan Chambers: And that kind of goes along with the, do you have a recommendation for when to apply? For example, should a first year wait until their agenda is more clear in their second year before applying?

Gregory Dutton: No, that's up to you. So you don't have to, right. So you just need to be enrolled. And that's entirely up to you. There is no limit to how many times you could apply. We do get resubmissions. And I think the NOFO also talks about, you know, if you did previously apply, we ask for a short, we call it, resubmit statement, for you to declare that you, you know, had applied before. And it gives you a chance to respond to some of the reviewer comments that you were given from that first application.

So that the, you know, the reviewers and maybe new reviewers, it's possible that it could go back to somebody who had reviewed it the other time. But it lets the reviewers know that you've taken that into consideration and how you may have improved your application. But no, you could first or second year. It's up to you.

Megan Chambers: We are getting lots and lots of questions, and this is great. So, do research designs that are more complex, such as experimental design, hold more weight toward being accepted compared to other applications proposing surveys or interviews?

Gregory Dutton: No, I don't think that particular research designs are more or less likely to be funded. So this sounds like it's more from a social science perspective.

No, we funded all kinds of social science research designs.

Megan Chambers: If someone is already receiving funding by another grant from their advisor, would they need to be off of that grant to focus on this one?

Gregory Dutton: It depends. So you do need to declare if you are already being supported by some funding source.

And so it's possible that, you know, we would try to avoid duplicating federal funding, especially. But it's no, it's just it's something to declare. And it may be that you wouldn't need that support later and your advisor could use it for somebody else if, you know, you got a GRF fellowship. But we don't want to duplicate funding. But there's no specific prohibition. But you do need to declare that. 

There is a question: is a forensic science Ph.D. student eligible to apply? So again, look at the broad eligibility requirements. So is it a research doctorate? So Ph.D. is a research doctorate. So and forensic science is not in the humanities or visual and performing arts. So you're looking good.

Megan Chambers: Following up on that question about, do we need to declare our funding source if it comes from our university, for example, through a graduate assistantship?

Gregory Dutton: Oh. Oh. If you're being supported from the university, you can declare that. So I think especially if you use the bio sketch form, there's a place to declare, like, your research funding support.

You could declare that. If it's a normal research associate or TA through the university, not necessarily. But you could declare it. Can you provide examples of a research doctorate that is not a Ph.D.? So, there's Ed.D. There is... boy, I'm not really up on all of these.

We do have a link in the NOFO. [NOTE: see https://ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/earned-doctorates/2024#tableCtr14397]. So if you follow the link to some specific definitions from NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics that defines all these things and collects data. They have those definitions. So you can see all of those non Ph.D. research doctorates in there.

Does the applicant have to be a US citizen?

We don't have a specific requirement for citizenship since the grants go to the university and not the student. But the student needs to be eligible under university policy to receive payment from them.

Megan Chambers: Question about whether veterans studies that intersect with criminal justice involvement meet the NIJ criteria for what they're looking for, specifically talking about the slide that covered items that the NIJ is really interested in seeing.

Gregory Dutton: Not knowing specifically what that is... If you're looking at those topics and you see some overlap and you can make the case that your topic meets those, absolutely, make that case.

Megan Chambers: Does the GRF budget include the overhead funding for the university?

Gregory Dutton Yeah. So overhead or indirect costs can be included in the cost of education allowance, but that total amount is capped at $16,000. So it depends what the university prefers to call it. So they could call it indirect and charge it under that. But it's capped at $16,000. Or they could charge other costs to that. It's up to the university.

Megan Chambers: Could you explain how much of the fee and tuition dollar amount can be used for project supplies?

Gregory Dutton: Oh, so this might be referring to, and again, I encourage you to go to the FAQs on the program page. So if the university elects not to use the whole $16,000 per year cost of education allowance, any portion of that could be used for research expense eligible costs. But you know, so that is possible.

But again, it would need to be for things that are otherwise eligible under research costs. And that's entirely up to the university, right. If they elect to use the whole $16,000 for fees, tuition, indirect, that's up to them.

Megan Chambers: So again, with the budget, since the budget is a one-time submission and applicants are encouraged to propose up to the full three-year period, how should they handle cases where a dissertation’s completed earlier than expected?

Would the funding period simply end early, or are there other restrictions against proposing a longer timeline that needed?

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. So we completely understand that, you know, it's hard to know, a long time out, exactly when you're going to finish. So, yes, if you finish earlier than you had expected or then you had proposed, then you can end the fellowship early, and the amount that remains goes back to the Treasury.

So, yeah, there's no problem with that.

Megan Chambers: Follow up question: Is it possible to amend our proposals in a year later if the amendment will support more productive research that is still in line with the mission of NIJ?

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. It's possible if there's some reason that the project changes, as long as it is still relevant to our mission and those research relevance topics. That's possible.

Question of looking at past years, what have you seen as the biggest recurring issue that applicants don't include or don't highlight in their proposals?

Gregory Dutton: That is a good one. I would say, especially this year, make sure that you clearly state how it's relevant to criminal justice and those research relevance to the eligibility points that we showed.

So there's a number of them, preventing and controlling crime, protecting the border, enforcing the law, promoting public safety, ensuring the fair and impartial administration of criminal or juvenile justice in the United States. Those cover a lot of ground. But I would say, especially this year, make sure that you really show, that you really make a case, that your research fits those.

And also if you, if it happens to overlap with any of those agency funding priorities, those priority considerations that we also talked about, you know, clearly state that and make the case for it. But that's the one thing I could think of especially this year. Make sure that you talk about the relevance to those. And also if you look at the review criteria now, there's more weight now for impact than there was previously for GRF.

So again, emphasizing the impact that your research could have, is, I think, important. There's one more:

Megan Chambers: Could you say a little bit more about the anticipated fellowships start date? And so for the FY 25 graduate research fellowships, the earliest they can start is January 1st, 2027. The reason that we say it might be a little bit variable is if you haven't given all of those, you know, documents that need signatures that aren't required for the application but are required for you in order to have the funds released, it's possible that it might take, you know, a few weeks or a couple months in order to release some of those things. Which is, again, why it can be difficult to have projects that are only proposed to be six months and clearing those within, you know, it could take up to six months to clear, and then the award is over. So it's easier for us, for everyone, if this is just 12 months as a minimum project period.

Gregory Dutton: And if your topic isn't yet approved, so if you're early in your degree program and your topic isn't yet approved, you know, you might not actually start the fellowship funding until later. It could be months, a year later. But January 1st is the earliest that it could start.

Megan Chambers: Is a current student who will begin the Ph.D. program in the fall of 2026 eligible to apply?

Gregory Dutton: No. You need to be enrolled now, so that is one of the required elements, is certification of enrollment. Current enrollment. So in that case, you know, you might consider applying next cycle.

Megan Chambers: Question. how do they show proof of dissertation topic approval?

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. So that can either be a letter from your chair. Or it could be, you know, sometimes there's a document that say goes to the committee members to sign. It's different for different programs, but a letter from the chair would suffice.

Megan Chambers: Can we elaborate more on the priority funding areas, specifically, what can be included as directly supporting law enforcement operations and supporting services to American citizens?

Gregory Dutton: I don't know that I have more information that I can give on that now. I would encourage you to look at the NIJ website. There might be more detailed information there.

Otherwise, again, I want to say I'll leave it to you to make the case that it fits that description. But go to NIJ.gov to see if there's more guidance there. But I'm afraid right now I don't have any more detail to give you. There was a question from someone, again, wondering if their degree program is eligible. And we're not going to get, you know, we can't get into the specifics of it. But I will say, a lot of degree programs are eligible, not humanities or visual performing arts.

Look for the definitions of those at the link in the NOFO, again, to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. That defines lists of what is what. So they have a list of degree programs that are defined as humanities or whatever. So take a look at that. And if yours does not fall within humanities or visual performing arts, you're good to go.

Megan Chambers: For Ph.D. students with undergraduate transcripts from a foreign country, would an informal copy still suffice?

Gregory Dutton: It could. I mean, in that case, it'd be very helpful to have a translation. Because it may not be very useful to reviewers if it's not translated. But, yeah, an unofficial copy, perhaps translated, would suffice.

Megan Chambers: If you don't know when you are graduating, can you ask for 12 months of funding but end up getting less if it does not last that long?

Gregory Dutton: Oh, say it again. Oh, so if you proposed 12 months, but you defended earlier. You could, yeah. I mean, that's possible. I would say if you're that close to defending, you probably have a reasonable sense of how long it is likely to take you. But yeah, that could be the case.

If you really know that it's going to be less than 12 months, then I would say don't apply because we do have that 12 month minimum now. But we recognize that it's tough to know exactly when that's going to happen.

Megan Chambers: Can students impacted by the justice system apply?

Gregory Dutton: Anyone who is currently enrolled in an eligible degree program and meets all the other eligibility requirements? Yes. Absolutely.

Is dissertation committee approval the same as passing the dissertation prospectus?

Gregory Dutton: So, there are a lot of different ways that different programs define and label these things. So I don't know if I can say yes or no, but in general, you know, for a research doctorate program, usually, you know, that typically entails, you know, proposing and executing original research, right.

So there is, I think, universally or maybe almost always some stage where you need to propose a topic that you're going to study and that that gets approved or not. That's the stage that we're talking about. So specifically what your program calls it, I don't know. But it sounds like that might be the case for you.

But it's whatever the point where you propose your topic and they say, yes, go ahead. That's the stage.

Megan Chambers: We're going to see how many more we can get through. Are additional jobs allowed in conjunction with this award?

Gregory Dutton: Possibly. So, we don't necessarily have a policy. You know, the intent of the funding is to make it possible for you to put your, you know, full attention to finishing your degree program.

There's not necessarily a blanket prohibition on having other sources of income. That's more an issue for your university. They might have a policy on whether or not you can have outside income while you are holding a fellowship. So check with your university. Otherwise, if it's another federal fellowship program, we definitely need to know about that.

You should not be supported by two federal fellowship programs simultaneously.

Megan Chambers: Is a current student who will begin the Ph.D. program in fall of 2026 eligible to apply? We already said you have to be currently enrolled in order to apply for the fellowship.

Looking for just, you know, lists of specifics in criminal justice, you know, topics you would consider, for example, policies for better policing. Would that be considered? Again, go to the NOFO and look at the different types of priorities that are outlined there.

What kinds of evidence or research designs does NIJ find most compelling when assessing whether a project will produce findings that are actionable for practitioners, especially in areas like prosecutorial discretion or local governments.

Gregory Dutton: I don't think we have any guidance that we can give you on that necessarily. I think that sounds like it's probably fairly field dependent. But, yeah. Outside of GRF, are other funding opportunities expected from NIJ this year. So there currently are two other funding opportunities open from NIJ. Keep an eye out, keep looking at NIJ.gov to see when others are posted.

Megan Chambers: Do you accept supporting letters of support and recommendations from program directors, deans or community partners such as the heads of local law enforcement agencies as part of the proposal? And would that be seen as helpful in the merit review process?

Gregory Dutton: I would say I think from a perspective of the reviewer, so giving them a bunch of additional things that aren't necessarily that relevant probably isn't going to help you because they're not going to want to read through all those.

If it's something that is directly relevant to your project, say, your project really hinges on working with an agency, in that case, to have a letter of support from them would be helpful to the reviewer to assess the, you know, feasibility of your project. So, yes. So again, I want to emphasize to people that is a separate thing from, what we call the statement of support that comes from your committee chair. So yeah.

So that statement of support is required for everyone from the committee chair. But if there are outside collaborating partners, yeah, I would say only include those that are essential to your project.

What's the question? If advancement to Ph.D. candidacy is achieved after the grant is submitted, but before awarding is announced, does that still need to be outlined in the project timeline and expected milestones? Yeah. So, it's helpful to the reviewers and to NIJ to give a timeline for your degree progress. Yeah.

Megan Chambers: For the list of individuals in the application, is it acceptable to include individuals beyond the dissertation committee?

Gregory Dutton: I would say only include those, again, that are sort of essential to the actual project, right. If you're working with an agency and there's a specific person that is kind of essential to it, you could put them on there. I mean, they're not going to be part of the budget. So, in a sense, they're kind of ancillary. But, if they're essential to the project, then, sure.

Megan Chambers: And there's a good one. The NOFO discusses deliverables that need to be met during the course of the fellowship. I was always under the impression that publications need to be done after the dissertation is completed. Otherwise, it would nullify some of the importance of doing it for the first time. Are deliverables then limited to just presentations at conferences? Or do they have to include publications prior to the completion of the dissertation?

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. So this, I think it's very field dependent. So I think at the social sciences it's standard for people to purposefully not publish peer reviewed, related, publications until after they defend it. That's not the case in the physical sciences, in the hard sciences.

So, you know, whatever it is that you, that you do. So if you're not publishing the peer review literature and you're doing presentations, yeah, report those. Yeah.

Thank you for all these questions. There's so many of you. So this is great.

Megan Chambers: I know they keep coming. Oh, what if we plan to do work with an agency but do not have time to get a letter of support from that agency before the deadline.

Gregory Dutton: Yeah, I realize the timeline is kind of short now. You know. You can still propose it, and maybe include a statement that, you know, you've reached out to them, but, you know, at the time of submission, you didn't get an answer back.

So at least the reviewers know that, you know, you're attempting to do that. So maybe you can't demonstrate for sure that you've got them on board, but at least the reviewer can see that, you know, that you're trying to make that and that it was just a matter of time. I think they'll appreciate that.

Megan Chambers: Should we keep going?

Gregory Dutton: If you have some more, we could go another couple minutes. Where are we? Almost at three. Oh, we are at three.

Megan Chambers: What about questions we did not have time to answer.

Gregory Dutton: Yeah. So, thank you for your questions. We will capture these questions and we will try to incorporate them into the FAQs on the program page. And if there's something specific that we need to get back to you that we can't answer, I think there is a way for us to find you specifically from your comments. But in general, go to the program page FAQs.

Thank you so much for all your great questions, and thank you for your time today. I think we're going to have to end the webinar now. We look forward to your proposals. The best day of the year is when we get your proposals and we see the brilliant ideas. So, thank you.