OpportunityTitle: Research and Evaluation for the Testing and Interpretation of Physical Evidence in Publicly Funded Forensic Laboratories, Fiscal Year 2021
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: For purposes of this solicitation, the term &quot;State&quot; means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virginia Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.  Foreign governments, foreign organizations, and foreign colleges and universities are not eligible to apply. Federal agencies are eligible to apply. (Any award made to a federal agency will be made as an inter-agency reimbursable agreement.)    Applicants must be, or be partnered with, publicly funded forensic science laboratories that are currently accredited by an independent accrediting or certifying forensic science organization. Publicly funded forensic science laboratories include state, regional, county, municipal, and tribal agencies.  To advance Executive Order 13929 Safe Policing for Safe Communities, as of October 28, 2020, the Attorney General determined that all state, local, and university or college law enforcement agencies must be certified by an approved independent credentialing body or have started the certification process to be allocated FY 2021 DOJ discretionary grant funding, as either a recipient or a subrecipient.  For detailed information on this new certification requirement, please visit https://cops.usdoj.gov/SafePolicingEO.   All recipients and subrecipients (including any for-profit organization) must forgo any profit or management fee.
Description: The Department of Justice is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights, increases access to justice, supports crime victims, protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community. The purpose of the CFDA 16.560 (the National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Projects Grants program) is to foster research to develop new knowledge and tools to address the challenges of crime and justice in the United States. With this solicitation, NIJ seeks proposals for rigorous research and evaluation projects that will: Identify and inform the forensic community of best practices through the evaluation of existing laboratory protocols. Have a direct and immediate impact on laboratory efficiency and assist in making laboratory policy decisions. The intent of this program is to direct the findings of the research and evaluation toward the identification of the most efficient, accurate, reliable, and cost-effective methods for the identification, analysis, and interpretation of physical evidence for criminal justice purposes. Projects should address the challenges and needs of the forensic science community, including but not limited to, the operational needs discussed at the 2020 TWG meeting, which may be found on NIJ.ojp.gov. NIJ&#8217;s Forensic Science Technology Working Group (TWG) assists in identifying and prioritizing operational needs and requirements of the field, which are intended to facilitate proposal development. Additional research needs of the forensic science community can be found at the Organization of Scientific Area Committees website.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: Technical POC
GrantorContactText: For technical assistance with submitting the SF-424 and SF- LLL in Grants.gov, contact the Grants.gov Customer Support Hotline at 800-518-4726, 606-545-5035, at Grants.gov customer support webpage, or email at support@grants.gov. The Grants.gov Support Hotline operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except on federal holidays. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;For technical assistance with submitting the full application in DOJ&amp;rsquo;s Justice Grants System (JustGrants), contact the JustGrants Service Desk at JustGrants.Support@usdoj.gov or at 833-872-5175. The JustGrants Service Desk operates 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST Monday - Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, and federal holidays.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;An applicant that experiences unforeseen Grants.gov or JustGrants technical issues beyond its control that prevent it from submitting its application by the deadline must email the National Criminal Justice Reference Service Response Center (Response Center) at grants@ncjrs.gov within 24 hours after the application deadline to request approval to submit its application after the deadline. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;For assistance with any other requirements of this solicitation, contact the Response Center by telephone at 800-851-3420 or TTY: 301-240-6310 (hearing impaired only) or by email at grants@ncjrs.gov. Response Center hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET on the solicitation close date. &lt;br/&gt;grants@ncjrs.gov