Webinar Transcript: FY 2024 NIJ Graduate Research Fellowship Program

NIJ held a webinar on February 14, 2024, gave an overview of NIJ’s Graduate Research Fellowship opportunity, which invites applications for doctoral dissertation research that is relevant to preventing and controlling crime, advancing knowledge of victimization and effective victim services, or ensuring the fair and impartial administration of criminal or juvenile justice in the United States. This solicitation is open to doctoral students in all science and engineering fields.

The presenters discussed program scope, eligibility, application elements, and frequently asked questions.

Transcript

STACY LEE: Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today for the “Fiscal Year 2024 National Institute of Justice Graduate Fellowship Program Webinar.” It's my pleasure to introduce Joseph Heaps, Senior Physical Scientist with the National Institute of Justice.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Thank you to everyone for attending. As Stacy said, my name is Joe Heaps. I'm a Senior Physical Scientist at the National Institute of Justice and I am part of the NIJ Graduate Research Fellowship Program team. I will be presenting today with my friend and colleague, Dr. Greg Dutton. We are especially happy and honored to have with us today NIJ Director Dr. Nancy La Vigne, to share her vision and set the broader context for the GRF Program. Director La Vigne, welcome. Thank you for joining us. The floor is yours.

DR. NANCY LA VIGNE: Thank you, Joe, and thanks to Greg as well, for the two of you doing this webinar. It's so important that our prospective applicants get a good idea of what we're looking for through this solicitation. As I expect most have discerned, we call this a fellowship, but what it really is a dissertation grant program. These are resources to cover your time while you are writing up your doctoral dissertations. And as I'm sure you have all also observed, we fund GRF, Graduate Research Fellows, to people across a wide array of disciplines as long as the dissertation idea touches on issues of safety, crime, and justice in the United States. 

I am excited to see over 100 participants today, 144 and counting. This is an important priority of mine as a director. I can't claim to have invented the Graduate Research Fellowship. It's been out there for a long time, but sometimes it skips a year. That's not something that you will see happen while I'm NIJ Director, because, for me, you all are the future of the field, and this is one of the most important things that NIJ can do is to help support emerging scholars as you are at the end stages of acquiring your doctorate degrees. So, it's very important to me. It's a huge priority. We really want to support you. We know that not all of you who apply will receive funding, and yet I hope that even the process of applying can help you get further along in your dissertation research. 

I'll probably be covering some content that Greg and Joe will be sharing later, and, unfortunately, I can't stay for the duration of this call. But I do want to share what I've observed does make for strong proposals and the timing of the application. It's my feeling that you'll be competitive if you have your prospectus mostly done, because essentially the application is a version of your prospectus. And I know that some dissertations are not one thesis but a series of papers, but that's okay as long as you demonstrate how those tie together. 

All of that means that you need to have very clearly articulated research questions and a very linear explanation of how each question will be answered with what data and what methodology, how you will collect the data, and how you plan to analyze the data. We'll be looking at the same types of things that your committee will be looking at. The one exception is, having done a dissertation, my least favorite part of it was the lit review, because it felt like there was no end to collecting all of these different publications and trying to synthesize them. And whenever I thought I was done, a new journal article would appear and I'll say, "Oh, no. How do I integrate that?" That's a lot of work for a dissertation, but you shouldn't dedicate too much real estate to that in your grant proposal because you really want to make the case that you have your game plan down in terms of the data, the methodology, the analysis plan, and so forth. 

Which is not to say you should not make a strong case for whatever the topic is that you aim to study for your dissertation, you just don't need to write pages and pages of a lit review. That's not a good use of the space allocated - the space that you have to work with in the proposal. 

I've been on listening tours, meeting with faculty grantees and students all over the country. I just returned from a West Coast tour last night, and so I got some, I think, frequently asked questions along the way. There's one thing that I wanted to be clear about: that we do have requirements around data archiving, but don't let those requirements rule you out. And what I mean by that is we have experts here at NIJ and in the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data to make sure that you're complying with those data archiving requirements without sacrificing any issues around human subject protections and identifiability. We will work with you on that. I know that sometimes when you're collecting qualitative data, it might not seem like you could comply with that, but we're here to help you work through that and make sure that you're not violating any human subjects' protections. 

I think the other question that came up recently is, how do you make the case that your research is unique? And it's important to show where your research questions and your overall thesis fits into the literature in a way that doesn't just repeat what others have done. But we recognize these are dissertations. You are at the start of your career. We don't expect groundbreaking proposals. What we do hope to receive, and I think successful proposals will demonstrate this, is an understanding of where your topics fit in with the knowledge of the field. Where does it fit in, how does it relate to what's already learned, and how will it get us a little bit further along? What’s that little nuance, that little difference that you are aiming to study? 

I'm going to finish this by saying I'm a social scientist. I'm not a forensic scientist. So maybe some of this advice doesn't fit in in the forensic science or the physical science space. That doesn't mean that we don't invite your proposals as well. I'm just like anyone: I talk from what I know. And you have two great experts here to work with in Joe and Greg to guide you along the way through this process. I welcome you to make good use of the Q&A time. Don't be shy. Get your questions out there, even if it was partially answered but there's some nuance, please bring on the questions and we're here to support you. We want to see as many strong proposals as possible. Thank you.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Thank you, Director La Vigne. Greg and I appreciate you taking time to join us today as we kick off GRF for 2024. We thank you very much. 

I would like to encourage all to use the QR code on this slide to access the GRF Program page for reference. We will show this QR code again later in this webinar. 

Greg and I have four goals for our webinar today. First, deliver an overview of NIJ's Graduate Research Fellowship Program for anyone not familiar. Second, to describe in detail how the fellowship works. Third, to highlight some recent updates for those who are familiar with the program. And fourth, to show you how to get started if you would like to apply. 

As Director La Vigne described, NIJ is the research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. Our mission is to bring science to issues of crime and justice for the benefit of the nation. We are a science-funding agency that primarily funds external research, but we have the specific mission space of bringing applied science to issues of crime and justice. NIJ is part of the Office of Justice Programs, or OJP, DOJ's grant-making agency. 

NIJ has long supported a Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The goal of GRF is to increase the pool of new researchers who work on problems relevant to our mission. We do this by supporting PhD students whose research is relevant to crime and justice. In 2023, GRF returned with the strong support of our director, as we heard Nancy communicate earlier. 

Starting in 2015, the program had two parallel program tracks, one in social and behavioral sciences, and a separate track in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM. In 2020, we removed the program distinctions and returned to a single comprehensive program. Now, students from all branches of science and engineering are invited to apply to a single program. The number of applicants has grown over the years and the program has become increasingly competitive. The success rate last year was 16%, so please keep in mind the GRF Program at NIJ is a highly competitive program like other federal fellowships. This slide indicates that the split in the types of degree program fields has been fairly equitable in recent years. We strive to support a diversity of science within this program. The program has funded over 200 fellows from over 70 institutions since 2012. This is about 20 new fellows awarded annually. 

This slide documents the diversity of topics GRF funds. This is a list of the 2023 GRF fellows’ PhD programs. You can see that it spans the social, physical, and life sciences, as well as engineering fields. For more details about the research these students are doing, we encourage you to go to the Past and Present Fellows link on the GRF Program page. 

As promised, here is the QR code that sends you to the GRF Program page. This central resource has links to everything we have and we will talk about today. Some of those are circled here: the Solicitation, NIJ Guidance for Applicants, FAQs, and Past and Present Fellows. Now, I will turn the webinar over to my friend and colleague, Dr. Greg Dutton, to talk about the specifics of GRF for 2024.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Thank you, Joe. The 2024 GRF Solicitation, that's what we call our funding opportunities, is open now and accepting applications. This solicitation text is where you're going to find all the specific details about the application requirements and the terms of the fellowship. I encourage you to download that soon and read through it closely. The GRF Program page also has a link to this solicitation. 

The scale of the program for this year is expected to be similar to recent years, so we expect to award about 20 new fellows. And the program terms are similar with just a few small changes that we're going to discuss today. 

Here's a look at the timeline for the program this year. So the solicitation is open now and complete applications are due by April 17th. NIJ has a two-step application process, so that's why you see two deadlines listed, and we'll go over how that works very soon. After applications are received, they go through a review process in May and June and awards are typically made in September. All awards are expected to be announced by September 30th. The earliest that a fellowship could start is January 1st, 2025. So, keep this timeline in mind as you consider whether to apply this year and when you could reasonably expect fellowship support to begin. 

The program has just a few simple eligibility requirements. First, the student. The student needs to be enrolled in a PhD program in any science and engineering field. And, also, the students' dissertation topic needs to be—that they propose needs to have demonstrated relevance to criminal or juvenile justice or victimization and victim services in the U.S. We added victimization and victim services this year just to be clear that it's always been a part of the scope of the program. The student can be at any stage in their graduate career as long as they're currently enrolled in a program at the time of application. But the fellowship funding is meant to support the student during the research writing and defense phases. You can be awarded a GRF fellowship before you're actually at the point of research and your topic has been approved but the award would be put on hold. 

The university. The university must be an accredited institution in the U.S. or its territories, and the university is the official applicant and applies on behalf of the student. This is really a program where the student and the university need to work together to assemble and submit an application. 

For the terms of the fellowship, GRF provides up to $60,000 per year for up to three years' worth of funding with some simple budget categories. This includes $41,000 annually for student salary and fringe benefits. We've increased that slightly this year. Up to $16,000 for a cost of education allowance. So that's tuition fees, university expenses. This has been increased by $4,000 this year to match the NSF GRFP Cost of Education allowance. And up $3,000 annually for research expenses, and we'll talk about that in more detail in a second. The intent of the fellowship is to get the student the financial support to let them devote their full efforts to completing their dissertation, so we try to make our fellowship terms competitive with other federal funders, and I think you'll see that. If you're out there looking for a fellowship, we try to make it competitive.

Next, we're going to discuss some of the specific allowable cost items under these budget categories. Because award amounts are limited, we want to make sure that the budgets make the best use of funds to support the student and their research.

First, budget categories. Salary and Fringe. This can only support the student fellow and can include fringe benefits or separate health insurance, and we recommend that the full amount be requested. The second budget allowance is for the Cost of Education. This can include tuition fees, university administrative cost at the discretion of the university. Up to $16,000 a year is permitted. Also, if the university elects not to use the entire $16,000 allowance, the remainder can be used under the Research Expenses category. That's something that has come up in the past. The third budget allowance is for up to $3,000 a year for Research Expenses. So, these are cost items that directly support the student's research or scholarly professional activities. So, this includes a number of allowable items. You can read through those here. This is a pretty unique allowance that other fellowship programs often don't provide. So, it might give you the opportunity to purchase or acquire samples that otherwise you wouldn't be able to or travel to present your work at conferences. Other costs may be permitted if they support the goals of the program. So, you'll see things like instrument time is important for people in the physical sciences to get user facility time. Human subjects incentives are very important for people in the social sciences. We try to make sure that the types of expenses that you need to support your research are available. 

A couple of other notes about fellowship terms. These are one-time awards that can't be supplemented with additional funds. The total amount of support that you anticipate needing needs to be requested up front. If you're certain that you're going to finish in 18 months, then you might want to request just 18 months. But if you're not sure, you might want to request two or three years. We recognize that the course of research is unpredictable but we want to note that there's no competitive advantage to lowballing. 

There are just a few annual requirements to stay in good standing. You need to submit annual performance reports, like any other grant, where you report the progress of your project, applications, presentations. Also, verification of continued enrollment and a letter from your committee chair confirming that you're making adequate progress in your degree program. 

Then the final deliverables for the fellowship are a copy of your defended thesis, list of scholarly products, like publications and presentations, and, finally, a link to your project data archived in an appropriate repository. That's a new requirement for GRF this year Director La Vigne noted. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a second too. 

This brings us to point out the changes to GRF this year. We've already talked about clarifications in eligibility. Not really changes but clarifications. And, also, some minor increases to the budget. Other changes: data archiving. All NIJ grants have required archiving of project datasets for replication and reuse by others. Obviously, this is a thing that's going on across the sciences. This is being recognized more and more as really a critical part of research and science. 

This year, new GRF awards made this year will also be required to archive their data at the end of the project. Just what data archiving looks like is going to vary from project to project and field to field, so questions like what exactly constitutes the data that's going to be archived? Is it raw data? Is it processed? What repository is most appropriate? So, you'll need to submit a data archiving plan. 

Also, some minor changes in proposal formatting requirements or guidelines. We've reduced the page limit and we've relaxed specifics about proposal formatting, things like fonts, line spacing, margins. Now we leave it to you to decide how best to present your proposal visually. 

If you're contemplating applying, these are the first steps to take. Again, review the solicitation itself. That's the official document with the specific requirements. First, to verify that you're eligible. Then contact your university Office of Sponsored Programs or a similar office. Every university is going to have an office that will help faculty and others at the university apply for external research funding. Get in touch with them to let them know that you intend to apply and to ask for their help in submitting. Again, every university is going to have an office. It might have a different name, Office of Sponsored Research. You might even have a dedicated fellowships office. Find yours and get in touch early. 

Then start putting together all the elements of the application. The biggest piece obviously is going to be the proposal narrative. Again, get to work on that early. Secondly, ask for the letter of support from your chair or advisor early. You don't want to leave that until the last minute. They won't be able to submit that independently. They're going to have to send it to the university Office of Sponsored Programs to submit together with the application package. And then also make sure to get your enrollment verification and transcripts ready. Transcripts, both graduate and undergraduate. 

Now, for the application submission process itself. Again, the university must submit the application for you. Students cannot apply as individuals. You're going to need to give them many of the application documents, but they are going to submit. NIJ now has a two-step application process. This is initially for the university more than the student. But the first step is submission of the SF-424. That's the government form at Grants.gov. It's just the standard form declaring a request for federal assistance. That deadline is April 10. The second step is submission of the complete application package in JustGrants, DOJ's new grant system. That includes all the critical application elements that we've talked about and other items. That deadline is April 17. In order to meet those deadlines, your university OSP will have their own internal deadlines for when they're going to need the documents from you. So, get in touch with them early to find out when they're going to need everything. 

There are six critical application elements that are required as part of the application package. An application missing any of these will not go forward for further review. See the solicitation for the specific requirements and make sure to work with your university to assemble these documents by the deadline. 

There are other application elements that aren't required as part of the application package, but they will help reviewers and NIJ assess your application, and not giving them upfront with the application can delay the release of fellowship funds if you do get an award. It's in your best interest to include them, if you can, with the initial application. So, these are things like Personal Statement, Human Subjects and Privacy, the Data Archiving Plan that we mentioned. Note that human subjects and privacy forms are needed. Even if those issues aren't applicable to your project, the forms will need to say something like not applicable. See the solicitation for other elements that are needed for applying. 

Some other issues that are important but are not required at the time of application are dissertation topic approval, and if you do have human subjects, IRB approval. If you do have these when you apply, great, then include them. But they are not required at the time of application. But if you do receive a fellowship, you're going to have to complete these before fellowship funds would become available to you. 

This is a nice point to point out another resource here for you. In addition to the GRF Program page and the FAQs, there's another great resource page at NIJ for all NIJ applicants and grantees. This is where you can read in detail things like Human Subjects Protection and Privacy requirements. Go there to learn more about how those things work. And there are links in the solicitation and the program page to this page.

So, let's say now you've assembled and submitted your application. What happens next? The very first thing we do after all the applications are received is an internal NIJ review for eligibility and for the critical application elements. All proposals that meet these basic minimum requirements and are determined to be eligible will then move forward to external merit review. But an application missing any of those critical elements will be rejected at that point without further review. We hate to see that happen. So, work with your OSP to make sure that they have everything needed, so it's included with the application. It doesn't happen that often these days, but you just need to make sure that you work together to make sure everything is included. 

Next, we convene panels of external reviewers to review the proposals on their merits. The reviewers are academic faculty with experienced mentoring grad students like you. Including the name of your degree program on your title page, and also the content of the proposal, help us to assign your application to an appropriate panel of reviewers. Knowing what the panels are going to focus on and what they're going to score your application on can help you develop your proposal and focus on what you write. So, these are the merit review criteria that are given in the solicitation. 

So, what are those? There are four criteria for GRF. Look at the solicitation for the details of what the reviewers are instructed to consider under each one of these. But you can see that project design carries the most weight at 40%, budget the least at 5%. GRF budgets are tightly constrained in what's allowable anyway. Go to the solicitation to read under each of those what it is the reviewers are really going to be considering. 

GRF also has a priority consideration for minority serving institutions or MSIs. Applications from these institutions will be given special consideration. If you're not sure if your institution fits into one of these categories, you can see the list from the Department of Education at the links and the solicitation. This is one of many factors that NIJ considers in making funding decisions. 

How does this all come together in determining the outcome of an application? We should emphasize that merit review is overwhelmingly the most important factor. When you write your proposal, make sure you think about the merit review criteria that the reviewers will be using when they do their assessments so that you present the strongest possible proposal. The NIJ Director makes final award decisions. She'll take the results of peer review, merit review, and may take other factors, including the MSI priority, into consideration. 

New fellows are typically notified by September 30th and unsuccessful applicants shortly after in early October. And you will be given the detailed comments from your reviewers whether or not you are awarded, so that's great feedback whether or not you get a fellowship or not. 

A few tips to keep in mind to help you put together a successful proposal. Take a look at the past fellows abstracts to get a sense of what's been successful in the past. There's a link on the program page to past and present fellows. Secondly—this is important—make sure that the relevance to criminal justice is clearly stated. If that's missing, the application risks being rejected without review. Include preliminary results if appropriate. Again, that varies by field and by your stage in your degree program, but if you do have some preliminary results to include, reviewers find that very helpful. 

Ask others to read and review before you submit. Everyone can benefit from constructive criticism and editing no matter what, right? Not just a fellowship application process, but anything you do. The writing for the proposal should be yours, but feedback certainly can help improve the final product. 

Finally, visit the GRF program FAQs to see if any new questions come up during the solicitation open period. So we try to add questions that come into the FAQs so that everyone gets the benefit of seeing the answers, because other people may be asking questions that are also relevant to you. So we'll be posting new questions and answers there. 

Here again are the resources from our information about the program and this year's solicitation. We also encourage you to look for the slides and a transcript of this webinar once it's posted. I think it'll take maybe a couple of days. If you don't find an answer to your questions in the FAQs during the open solicitation period like now, contact the OJP Response Center at the phone and email contacts that are given here, and they're also listed in the solicitation. 

That concludes the presentation part of the webinar. We are going to turn to the Q&A portion to take your questions. We actually have some pre-submitted questions. We had a few people send us some questions ahead of time, which was very helpful. I think we may start with those and then we're going to start teeing up the questions out of the Q&A. 

First question, “Can a dissertation committee chair provide a biosketch using the NSF biosketch format in science CV? Or would you prefer that the faculty member use the NIH biosketch format like the student?”

We don't have a required format for biosketch or CV at all. We really like the NSF and NIH biosketch formats that can be made through science CV. Pick the one that's right for you. The NIH one is great because it's kind of tailored to a student fellowship applicant, but the NSF ones are a little better for an established researcher. So, yes, they could certainly use the NSF one. 

Another question, “Which people need to be listed under capabilities and competencies? For example, it says to include committee chair, should we include the entire committee?” 

You can. If you already have a whole committee and you want to list them, you certainly can do that. 

Follow up question to that says, “Would you recommend that we also include CVs for these people?” 

A CV for your committee chair is required, right? It's not required for anyone else and, so, you could include them or not. I would maybe suggest you might think about the reviewer and not bog them down with too much information if it's not critical.

Another question, “Can we include papers in preparation on our CV?” 

You certainly could as long as you'd clearly note them as in preparation. 

I'm just burning through these pre-submitted questions, so I’ve got a couple more. 

“Are doctoral students permitted to submit an optional DEI statement?” 

I think this person may be familiar with NSF and other funding agencies that maybe ask for those kinds of statements. NIJ has not required those. But, that may be something that you might consider including in your personal statement, right? The personal statement is a place where you can give the reviewers any sort of information about your background. So, the personal statement might be the place for that. 

“Do we need to double space the personal statement or the data archiving plan?” 

Again, we talked about the formatting requirements. We leave it to you. No, you don't need to double space anything. That's up to you. 

“Is it possible to view prior successful applications?” 

This is an interesting question. NIJ does post a handful of examples of successful applications. There isn't one from GRF. I think if you go to NIJ.gov and you search for something like sample application, you'll find it. There are a few there. There's none that's GRF. I think, especially, because GRF applicants are usually first-time grant writers and the fields vary so much, we hesitate to point to one or even a few as examples that people should emulate. No, we don't have any GRF examples, but we do have the list of past and present fellows, right? That's a public list. You could certainly reach out to them, maybe somebody in your same field or your university might be willing to share their proposal with you on their own. 

“Can you apply for funding for an 18-month period or does it need to be in 12-month intervals?” 

You can definitely request partial year budgets, but the overall budget should be broken into 12-month or less periods. So again, an eighteen-month total budget, you’d give it in a twelve-month increment, and a six-month increment. 

"If my tuition is over the maximum allotted, should I budget for my actual tuition or the maximum?" 

You can't exceed the maximum for the budget categories. When you're filling in the budget under federal requests, you shouldn't put more than what is allowable as the maximum amount, so for that, that would be the $16,000 cost of education allowance category. Don't request more than that. But you could put in the notes—so there are places in the budget to put notes—you could say what the total amount is and that the fellowship would support up to the maximum. 

That's all of the pre-submitted questions. Now, we are going to go to the Q&As that have come in and I'm going to also ask for Joe to help me get through these.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Absolutely. The first question that came in was, "My psychology research is around public attitudes towards sex offender policy. Does this fit with what you're looking for?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: We can't comment on specific topics, but I would say, remember, the eligibility requirements are pretty broad. And so if you're in psychology, that is a social science, right? It fits the science and engineering. And the second thing is, can you demonstrate a relevance to crime and justice victimization. Take a look at the solicitation of the specific language of that but if you can make an argument, then it probably would be eligible. But unfortunately, here, we cannot say yes or no for any topics.

JOSEPH HEAPS: The next questions are around the type of degree. We have multiple questions with regard to doctors of education with regard to organizational change, doctor of education leadership and administration students. Are these folks eligible for the GRF?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: PhD programs are eligible, so if it's not a PhD program, then it may not be eligible. Look at the solicitation. We can't necessarily, at this point, say yes or no to a specific one. Look at the solicitation and if you have more specific questions, send them in to the OJP Response Center to get a response to your specific question. But again, I'm going to say PhD programs in sciences and engineering.

JOSEPH HEAPS: And we have a timing question. "If I'm awarded, GRF would start at the beginning of my last semester, is that okay?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: It certainly could. GRF can only fund you up to the point where you defend, so I think the program policy is generally to go until the end of the month in which you defend, right? It's not meant to support anyone after you get the degree. But at any point in there, it certainly could. I would also say, though, in that case, keep in mind that the earliest that it could start is January 1, but if you don't have all those things, human subjects, privacy, data archiving plan approved, if those things aren't all done and approved by January 1, that can be delay in the funding. So, think about that as well.

JOSEPH HEAPS: We have a question from a student who's an American who is studying abroad, at a school overseas. Is that person eligible?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Possibly not. Remember that the university needs to be an accredited institution in the U.S. or its territories, so it does depend where the university is located. The university is the official applicant so it needs to be in the U.S. or its territories.

JOSEPH HEAPS: We have a question with regard to allowable costs. "Can education allowance be used for conference travel?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: I would say technically that would be under research expenses, but we did say that if the university is not using all of the $16,000 cost of education, that can be moved over to supplement research expenses, so perhaps.

JOSEPH HEAPS: We have a timing question. "What if I defend before the award time is completed?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah. That happens a lot, right? It's really difficult at the outset, months or years ahead to predict exactly when you're going to defend. You can get an award that gives you up to three years of support but you may find that you're going to defend after two and a half years. You would then just let us know and the grant would then end the month that you defend. Again, when I talk about how to plan out how much, how long of support to request at the beginning, make sure that you give yourself enough leeway for unexpected twists and turns in your research. But, you know, once you defend, then the fellowship funding will end.

JOSEPH HEAPS: There's another timing question. "If I'm a first year PhD, I don't have any publications yet, should I apply this year? I have a good proposal. I'll start working on this in June of 2025. Should I apply?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: You could. It sounds like you're just at the beginning of your program and so you certainly could apply this year. You may not need the funding until later, right? So, if you were awarded this year, the fellowship funds would be held until you get to the point where you've defended your topic and you get into the research phase. Or you could wait until next year. It's up to you. Remember, you can resubmit, so if you apply once and you're unsuccessful, you could reapply again. There's no restriction on that. So think about those things as you decide when to apply.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Multiple questions with regard to non-U.S. citizens at U.S. institutions, are they eligible?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yes, the university is the official applicant, so they need to be in the U.S. but there are no specific requirements about the student's citizenship.

JOSEPH HEAPS: We have a general question. "Is there any limit or are all great proposals accepted?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Limit to what?

JOSEPH HEAPS: Financial. So, there's a dollar figure in the solicitation, the total amount.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: The maximum total for GRF fellowship is $180,000, right? But also, I wonder if that question was getting at how many awards we plan to make?

The program has a limited amount of funds, so again, we expect to award about 20 new fellows. And remember, it is a competitive program so we only fund the best, but we welcome everyone's proposals.

JOSEPH HEAPS: We have a question with regard to how much space is typically dedicated to capabilities and competencies section of the project narrative to be competitive.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah, I don't know that I could say there are any sort of general trends on that. Certainly, you look at the weights in the merit review criteria. They're similar but the project design is a little larger. And usually, that's sort of the most important thing that the reviewers are looking at, right? Is it a properly and well-designed project? Capabilities, you may be able to convey in a shorter amount of space than something more complex like the project design.

JOSEPH HEAPS: "I already have a dissertation committee. Do they all need to be included in the application and provided letters of support or is the letter of support only required for my chair?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah, the letter of support is only required from the chair and the CV. Remember, we need a biosketch or CV from the student and the chair, but we don't need that from anyone else. There's another document that's among the helpful but not required where you list all the people associated with the project, and there, you could include the names of the other committee members if you think that that may be important for the reviewers to see. But you don't need to submit statements or letters or CVs for all of them, just the chair.

JOSEPH HEAPS: "I'm in my last semester of coursework and beginning candidacy, my research interests are in bridging outcomes between juvenile justice and higher ed under social sciences and human development, do I qualify to apply?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Again, I can't say yes or no here. Now, I did hear juvenile justice in there, so if you can demonstrate that it's relevant to juvenile justice, then I would suspect that it would likely qualify. But yeah, I can't really make that distinction here. But again, you can see that the language of the eligibility there is pretty broad and we're looking for a wide range of proposals that covers everything that, all the scope of NIJ. And so we're not looking to make fine distinctions. So if you fit that broad description under the eligibility, then you're likely to be eligible.

JOSEPH HEAPS: "What should be included in my personal statement?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: A personal statement isn't required, but you can include it if you think that it might be helpful to reviewers to give a little context for your background, why you got into the field that you're doing, what you sort of plan for your career, how the fellowship would fit into that, what you plan to do after your degree. So those are kind of things that you could consider putting in there but again, it's not required, and we don't have any specific things that we're asking for there. This is the place where you can present yourself in a broader context.

JOSEPH HEAPS: "I have completed my proposal defense, beginning research, are there other grants available for post-doc research work?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah. Okay. So good point. GRF would not be applicable. NIJ doesn't have specific post-doctoral opportunities except for, I believe, here's a W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship Program that might be applicable, look that up, I think typically it maybe supports people in post-doc or faculty positions. You certainly could apply to other NIJ programs, but we don't have a specific post-doctoral fellowship program.

JOSEPH HEAPS: So, another question with regard to the NIH biosketch. Does the biosketch satisfy the recommendation of the personal statement?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: It could. I believe the NIH biosketch has a place where you can give a statement. You could put a personal statement there. You could submit a personal statement as a separate document. But again, that's not required. You can decide how to do that.

JOSEPH HEAPS: May I submit my application before my general exam approved topic?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yes. Again, you need to be enrolled in your program, but you could be at any stage. You could be beginning, you could be at a point before your topic has been pitched and approved by your committee. The fellowship funds would be just put on hold until you reach that point. But yes, you could apply and we get, I don't know exactly what the number would be, but we do have maybe something like 25% GRF awards are made to people before their topics are approved. So, yeah, you certainly could apply.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Does NIJ have priority research areas or special topics that will receive special consideration? And then how is relevance to criminal justice victimization victim services assessed?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Because the program sort of supports everything that's within the scope of NIJ's mission, we don't give a lot of specific recommendations as to topics. The solicitation does give a couple of places to look for, for example, if you're interested in things related to forensic sciences, we give some links to some strategic research plan and some other places that have identified research needs in those areas. Also a link to just generally what NIJ does in other topic areas. Beyond that, we don't specifically guide. Again, GRF is meant to support people doing research relevant to everything that NIJ covers and nothing in specific. So, I guess the point is that is what I am doing specifically fitting into what NIJ wants? For GRF, NIJ wants to see everything that's out there. Take a look at those general links. But I'd say, if you can demonstrate a relevance to crime justice victimization, then you're probably eligible and certainly welcome.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Does the university complete the SAM registration?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yes. That's going to be something that your university has already done for other grant programs, so they'll know what that is and they will have done it. That'll be their business. 

JOSEPH HEAPS: I believe you indicated that fellows cannot receive other funding in addition to the NIJ funding. Does this include university stipends?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Not necessarily. I would say, look at the program page and under the FAQs, we have some questions that have come in from people about this. Whether or not you can have outside employment, some other source of income, you might be able to. The one thing that NIJ can't do is duplicate funding by another federal program, right? So that's the one thing that we avoid. You typically wouldn't be able to have two federal fellowships that were supporting you at the same time, right? We would look to avoid that. But other sources of income are possible. You just need to disclose that to the university and to NIJ in order to make sure that we're not duplicating funding.

JOSEPH HEAPS: There have been a number of questions with regard to data archiving. Let me get to the first one. Well, there's a general question about, can you describe the data archiving? Then I've got some more specific ones, Greg.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: The NIJ website, if you look under the guidance for applicants and awardees, it has some excellent detail on data archiving. This is something that all NIJ programs, aside from GRF, have done for a while. It's a pretty well-defined process. The expectation is at the end of the project, the datasets that your project produced will be made available for others to use for replication or reuse. That can look different for different fields of study and for different projects, right? Social sciences, NIJ has a preferred archive, the NACJD, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. Data would go there, issues with human subjects, privacy, sensitive data, there are ways that that can be dealt with that the data can still be made available to the extent that is appropriate. But those are things to work out. At the application stage, we're just asking for a brief plan for what is the data that your project is going to produce? Where do you propose that it be archived? A simple set, and I do believe on the website you can see some guidance for how to write that. Now, that plan is going to be if you're awarded a fellowship, the plan will be reviewed by NIJ. If it needs to be revised, we'll ask, we'll work back and forth. At the application stage, just look for the guidance for writing a plan and write one. The details can be worked out later, but the expectation is that at the end of the project, that the data will be made available to others, which is, increasingly, it depends on the field, either already done in many fields routinely or becoming more expected. This is just something that was about time for GRF to join the train on this one.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “I attended two undergraduate institutions, left the first without a degree, and later started and finished my degree. Do I need to submit transcripts for both schools or only for the school from which I graduated?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: That's up to you. You can think about what would be helpful for reviewers to see, right? If there is some course content in that first institution that you think it would be important for them to be aware that you've had that, that might be useful. 

JOSEPH HEAPS: Couple questions with regard to resubmissions, perhaps applications that were not successful in the past. “Do we see a lot of resubmissions and would we say that we're more or less likely to award a resubmission?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: We do see resubmissions. I wish I could give you a figure on how common that is. GRF, obviously, people tend to move through their program, so sometimes people will reapply if they're early enough and other times, they'll just sort of age out of the program, but we have had resubmissions, we have had resubmissions be successful. I don't know that there's a difference in the success rate of resubmissions versus first time. I'm not sure that there is, but it happens and it has worked. So, take that into consideration.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Can you go over the financial management and system of internal controls questionnaire?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: That is something for the university. I believe it's a fairly routine thing for the university to do. And I don't know, honestly, how that varies agency to agency, if the DOJ questionnaire is different from other agencies. If you have a specific question on that, I would say, please submit it to the OJP Response Center, and they may be able to give you a good answer on that, because I'm afraid I can't.

JOSEPH HEAPS: A couple more data archiving questions. “I'm planning to complete my dissertation using a secondary dataset that is already publicly archived online. How do I handle data archiving requirement in this case?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Then you would note that in the plan that it's already a publicly-available dataset. I don't know if there would be some reanalysis that would be appropriate for you to post to make available. Maybe that's the case, but that would just be an element of the data plan to say like, "Look, this is the data that I'm using. Here's where it is." You would just have a data plan that would be different from most. But again, that's a good point for us to emphasize that there is no one-size-fits-all for these data plans. Every project is different, every field is different so it's going to need to be tailored to your project.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Can I apply as a law student?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: If you're in a PhD program. If it's not a PhD program, then probably you wouldn't be eligible, right? PhD program in a science or engineering field. If there's a PhD program in law, I don't know, then it may be eligible.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “For the budget proposal, what if I'm not sure what I will be collecting regarding field work data, what can I include now to leave room for those kinds of finalized decisions when award begins?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah. Good question. I'm glad that you brought this up. Sometimes it's hard to really know all the details at the outset, but you can put in general budget lines for what you expect to need and that can be revised later. So even after the fellowship is made, remember, you can't get more money under the grant than what you initially request. So even if you don't know all the details, you might want to put in some just general descriptors of what you expect to have to use, but then the details can be filled in or revised later.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Is there a particular reference style that is preferred for the proposal?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: We certainly don't have a preferred style. I would say a good idea probably is to go what is most common for your field of study. Because remember, the reviewers that are going to be reviewing your proposal will be from your field of study or closely allied fields. Then you might want to use what's typical. If APA is typical for your field, use that. For me, chemistry, it would be ACS style. But, no, we don’t have any specific requirements for that.

JOSEPH HEAPS: And there were other questions with regard to all who are asking about eligibility of their degree programs. 

We received a question about doing work in the juvenile justice space, where it was not envisioned that this data would be archived. “Are there opportunities for people who are gathering data, where the data conversation with the participants did not envision archiving, is there room there?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah, absolutely. Again, as I say those data archiving plans need to be tailored to the project. If it's some kind of qualitative data that's sensitive, maybe it could be de-identified and there are some data that could be archived, right? The data archive plan is kind of the place for you to describe what is it that you're collecting that could be shared with others to build on, reuse, replicate later, right? All the raw data that you collect may not be necessary or useful for others, right? Think about what it is that may be appropriate for sharing with others and/or ways for it to be shared. Some criminal justice data may be particularly sensitive and it may not be appropriate for it to be made publicly accessible to everyone. There may be limits as to certain qualified users, law enforcement, but I don't know. But, even in that case, you would just need to describe and define what it is and how it is that you expect to make it available, right?

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Is there an age limit to those that can apply for the fellowship?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: No, no age limit. Again, just be enrolled in a PhD program and have a topic that's relevant to NIJ's mission.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “My research centers around using community engagement events to collect information on new and existing missing person cases. Can funds be directed towards the material cost or partial funding of the event if it's part of the research design?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Interesting question. I don't know that I can say yes or no. So, events like conferences, meetings are sort of special things within the budget definitions. I would encourage you to go to the NIJ site and look at that guidance for applicants and awardees to look specifically. If it's something that is related to the research that is necessary for, say, collecting data from subjects, it might be allowable. But I would encourage you to go to the NIJ website and look for more specific details about what is allowable for meetings and under budgets. Yeah. And also, again, submit a question to the OJP Response Center if you don't find an answer on nij.gov.

JOSEPH HEAPS: There's a general question about indirect cost policy here at OJP. “Can you discuss the indirect cost policies here?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Every university will have a federally-negotiated indirect cost rate. The university will know how that works. I'm certainly not qualified to speak to that. There are some general policy links that you'll find related to financial policies. I would say first go to those links to see DOJ policy regarding indirect rates. And then if you don't find an answer, submit a question to the OJP Response Center.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Another great question. “How applied do we expect the research proposal to be? If research is very fundamental in nature but the principles can be applied to advance the target goals, can that be funded as well? Or are you expecting people who work directly on technologies used for criminal justice?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: GRF could support a range of research from basic to applied. You just need to make the case that there is a relevance to, again, criminal or juvenile justice or victimization. If you can make the case that it's relevant, that there are some connection there, then, yeah, it could certainly be eligible. But if it is so basic that it's not necessarily self-evident or immediately evident what the connection is, then you need to make sure that you emphasize that relevance.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Should applicants opt for requesting the entire funding upfront considering there won't be opportunities for additional funding requests later?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Some people will know like, "Oh, you know, I've got 12 months left and I'm not going to go beyond that," so they might want to request only 12 months' worth. Others you may not really know, so you might want to be more, play it safe, and request longer term, request the maximum. There's no problem with that. Again, if you defend early or you don't use all the budget that you had initially requested, that's no problem. The fellowship can end and the money goes back to the treasury.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Another great question. “If I'm reapplying for GRF, but with a revised narrative such that it looks completely different from the original submission, would that count as a resubmission or can I just submit as if it were new?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah, you can decide whether or not to draw attention. We do say that for resubmissions, you're invited to include a statement at the beginning, but if it's so different that you feel it's far enough away that it's not necessarily relevant, you don't need to include that. Officially every application, even if it is a resubmission is a new one. You might want to just think about the reviewers. If it's close enough to what you had proposed before, and you might get another reviewer who had previously reviewed it and you might not, it's up to you whether or not to call it out that you had submitted one that was somewhat related. So it's up to you. But there is no official distinction of a resubmission versus a new submission.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “If we request a confidentiality certificate, will that interfere with the data sharing plan?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Again, I don't know the specifics of that. In some fields, there may be sensitive, data that might be protected under some agreement, then that would just be something that would be explained in the plan. There might be some portion of data that would not be appropriate to be, shared in the same way that other data might. You would just want to explain that in the plan.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “My datasets are mainly produced by programming scripts. Are these programming scripts supposed to be in the data archiving plan?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Maybe. If the data depends on those and it's something that someone else would need to be able to reproduce your results, then yeah, maybe so. I can think of some projects where they use GitHub as a repository for a lot of their work because that's appropriate for their field. Yeah. So that might be appropriate. You'd have the code up in GitHub for others to use. That could be part of your data plan.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “My university has a JustGrants account. Are we supposed to use that? Because I see that in the application PDF, if you submit to your Grants.gov application, then you receive a link to register with JustGrants.”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: If your university already has submitted applications in JustGrants, then they don't need to redo that. I think that language was maybe for a first-time applicant institution, but your university will know how to do that if they've already applied through DOJ.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “How does NIJ look at applicants who do and do not yet have publications? If one does not have any publications but writes a strong proposal, will she be prioritized for acceptance?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: There's not necessarily a sort of universal way that that's looked at. I think it varies a lot by field. Some fields, it's pretty common for grad students to really not have any publications until maybe they're at the point of defending. Then other fields, physical sciences, engineering, it's pretty common for students to start getting publications early in their career. I think it depends on the field, it depends on the stage that you are in your program, and that will be evident to the reviewers. If you're early in a program, in a field where it's not common for students to publish early, it won't be looked at oddly. It depends on the circumstances.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “In terms of letter of support, would one from our community partner, our juvenile justice court judge, be supportive?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: It might be. If this is a partnership that's relevant to the project, then that might be something that would be useful for the reviewers to see that you already have an existing relationship with them and that you're not proposing something that you really don't know if it's going to work. If it's relevant to the project, maybe. I would say in general, including letters of support that aren't directly relevant to the work isn't necessarily helpful. Think about the reviewers and what you're asking them to read and look through. If it's something that's directly relevant, then maybe they should see it. If it's just filler, then maybe you don't want to tax their attention with something that's not as important as your proposal.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Do references count towards my proposal narrative's 10-page limit?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: I believe, no. Look at the solicitation, but I think that that's considered separate.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “A quick clarification on biosketch and CV or biosketch or CV.” This question asker thought it was both but think might have heard otherwise.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: You can decide on what format you want to give, but biosketch is great because it's very concise and it's a uniform format that our reviewers are very used to. You can choose whether to use the biosketch format or a CV or a resume. No specific format is required but you just need to give one of those. It's the same information.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Great question here. “How much do we weigh facility dissertation committee expertise? I have experience in a field but no one else in my committee does. Is the committee evaluating the student or the committee chair mentor?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: If you look at the language in the solicitation under capabilities and competencies, it does refer to both the student and the academic environment. So that may be a mix of the committee, the department, or whatever. I'd say it can be all those things. Certainly sometimes people maybe have a committee that's got a lot of representation from a field that's outside theirs but, just think about the sort of the full picture that the reviewer is looking at. It depends person to person, project to project, but I'd say all those things go into consideration under that. But the most important thing obviously is the student. I think most reviewers are going to recognize that.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “I'm doing a PhD and statistics but already hold a terminal degree in Juris Doctor, will this make it harder for my application to be successful?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: No. I don't think so. Again, it sounds like you're in a PhD program now, so you're eligible. And you already have a law degree. Great.

JOSEPH HEAPS: A couple questions with regard to, "Do we prefer primary or secondary data?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah, I don't think there's a preference. Again, I'm from the physical sciences, so secondary data is not as much a thing in my experience but in talking to others at NIJ in the social sciences, it depends on the project. There is no hard and fast rule of, we're only interested in primary data versus secondary. 

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Can we talk a little bit about the weighting of the students' numbers of publications with regard to merit and recognizing that it's contextual with a six fourth authored papers versus two first authored papers. How do we look at those?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Again, I want to say that varies so much by the field of study that you should think about what is common in your field of study and what reviewers, who are from that field, are likely to perceive. It varies so much, I can't really make a single recommendation here.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “What if I do not have a dissertation committee yet, do I only get funding after I propose?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: You can apply for and be awarded a fellowship but the funds under that fellowship would be kept on hold until you propose your topic and it's approved by your committee. You'd have the fellowship, but the money would just be waiting until you get to that point. Now depending on your degree program, the field, they may have different language for what that is. I think the NIJ Director at the beginning was talking about a prospectus. Different fields will have different terms for what that's called, but yeah, it's the point where your research topic is approved and you start your research. That's the point where the funding can start. And, you can let us know, again, what's the process for your degree program, for how that looks and works. And at that point, then the fellowship can become active and funding can actually be released.

.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Are we able to recommend external reviewers?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: No. For this program, we don't invite that.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Okay. Two more. The first, "How are awards divided between the soft and hard sciences?"

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: So, Joe earlier in the presentation showed a slide with the split between the social sciences and the hard sciences and we look to make an equitable split. And honestly it hasn't been hard. In recent years, we've been getting a very good mix of applications. We typically have not had to make tough choices between, "Oh, we're going to fund this rather than that." We're going to emphasize this field over that because we get such a good mix of applications that we end up with a raw distribution of awards among the sciences. We're not looking for a specific distribution there. If you guys keep giving us a great mix of strong proposals, then we're going to be able to fund across the sciences, no problem.

JOSEPH HEAPS: And then finally, “If you're applying for the fellowship again, should you specifically address the reviewers' comments in your proposal?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: It may be helpful. If you got the feedback from the reviewers and you're resubmitting, then certainly the comments can help you strengthen the proposal. If you include a statement that is a resubmission and that you're taking those into account that also helps demonstrate your responsiveness and it can help also guide the reviewers to focus in on, “oh, yeah, this was a criticism that was pointed out last time and they've addressed that, right?” So yeah, that may be something that you want to consider including if you're resubmitting.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Would it present an issue if my dissertation chair is no longer faculty of my home institution?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Oh, the chair? No, not necessarily. So again, your home institution would be applying. If your chair is from another institution, then that's fine. You would still need a statement of support from your chair. But the fact that they're from another institution now is not a problem.

JOSEPH HEAPS: “Can I put a graduate student on the budget as a research assistant or only another graduate student?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Oh. I think it could be a graduate student, too. It needs to be someone whose work is necessary for your research. So, we're not looking to send money to someone for other reasons. Typically, that often is an undergrad but if it's a grad student, if it's for work that is required for your research, then it could be included.

JOSEPH HEAPS: And then this will be the last one for me. “For data collection, is it preferred that the project be solely domestic data or can international data collection be included?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Interesting. I think it could depend. I recall some projects that did some forensic anthropology data collection from overseas and it was relevant to the work. And the work was relevant to criminal justice in the United States. So yeah, it could be allowable depending. But again, I can't make a hard yes or no answer on that, but I'd say maybe.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Stacy and Daryl, I know that you have been tracking both the Q&A in the chat. Are there any questions or groupings of questions that Greg and I have missed over?

STACY LEE: Did we talk about how many awards that are expected to give out this year?

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: We did. We expect about 20, which has been typical for recent years. I see one question here. “If co-advised, are students required to list both chairs on the application?” If you have co-chairs, yeah, it would be a good idea to list them both. Now, a statement would only be required from one. But if they truly are co-chairing, you might want to give statements from both. If you have two, might as well include them both.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: There is a question here about stage in the degree program. “Do you think applicants are more likely to be successful in the later stages of their PhD programs?” So, in other words, despite the three years of funding available, are these beginning to function as write-up fellowships, like a final stage dissertation fellowship? They say, unlike NSF GRP which is for early career. 

This program supports both. We see both of them being awarded. From the early stage three years of funding, as well as the later stage dissertation type where maybe there’s only a year or a year and a half. Both of those are reviewing well and being rewarded. For now, we’re able to support both types of students.

JOSEPH HEAPS: Just one other thing with regard to the reviewers. Greg and I are always interested in participants in this webinar who would like to be reviewers for us to send us their information. We’re always on the lookout for good reviewers. Greg, specific answer to the question, “Can I recommend a reviewer?” The answer to that was no but we are generally looking for reviewers.

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Excellent point, Joe. But I’m also going to say there are conflict of interest rules. So, somebody from your home institution cannot be a reviewer on your application. There are things like that but, yeah, absolutely we welcome reviewers. Now for GRF, all the reviewers are academics. There’s also that but, yeah, we welcome all qualified reviewers.

JOSEPH HEAPS: The question is, “Can two students apply from the same school?”

DR. GREGORY DUTTON: Yeah, great question. I’m glad that we got that in at the end. Yes, absolutely. So, certainly there’s no limit to the number of applications that a school can submit. They’re going to submit a separate application for each student’s proposal, but there’s no limit. Sometimes more than one from one school are awarded. It just depends, but yeah, absolutely.

STACY LEE: On behalf of the National Institute of Justice, thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end our presentation.