Encouraging Innovation: Field-Initiated Programs

Posted by U.S. Department of Justice on March 14, 2016

We wanted to pass along a great opportunity for federal funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) located within the Department of Justice. The BJA has recently just launched the “Encouraging Innovation: Field-Initiated Programs FY 2016 Competitive Grant”.

Through this solicitation, BJA seeks to prevent and reduce crime and enhance the criminal justice system through collaboration with the field to identify, define, and respond to emerging or chronic crime problems and systemic issues. BJA is looking for proposed strategies to address these issues, including trying new approaches, addressing gaps in responses, building or translating research knowledge, or building capacity. Applications under this program should not duplicate other BJA-funded solicitations and should have either a national focus or the potential to broadly benefit the field of criminal justice.

BJA’s Field-Initiated Programs solicitation provides opportunities to support a small number of local, state, tribal, and national projects that bring fresh perspectives and ideas to enhance practice and prevent crime in the field.

Applications are sought in two areas:

Category 1: Applications that propose to test a strategy at the state, local, or tribal level, working with a research partner to document implementation and develop tools to support national replication.

Category 2: Applications to develop targeted and national or regional strategies that will make an impact in addressing a critical need or gap in the field. Regional projects must show that they are a model that is specific to a regional need or could be implemented effectively regionally and replicated elsewhere.

In both categories, the applicants must propose innovative strategies and/or strategies that are strategic in nature, such as those addressing an emerging issue in the field, and that are or are part of initiatives to improve relations between communities and the criminal justice field, including law enforcement. BJA will fund projects that reflect the priorities set in the BJA Strategic Plan and are consistent with the goals of this solicitation.

This solicitation employs a two part application process. During phase 1 (current), applicants can submit concept papers of up to 6 pages a budget summary sheet. The BJA will conduct an internal review of the concept papers, using the questions defined on pages 14-15 of the solicitation. Those whose concept papers are approved will be invited via email to submit a full application in phase 2 on April 22, consistent with the selection criteria and format in the solicitation. Those invited back to phase 2 will have 49 days to develop the full application, so they should be prepared to move quickly if selected.

BJA is issuing over 50 solicitations this year, and has many different funding opportunities. Given these other resources, BJA encourages applicants to look at BJA’s program plan and the BJA website to confirm that this applicant cannot be funded via another program. Those which could be funded elsewhere will be eliminated at the concept paper phase.

Concept papers are due: March 29, 2016

Please see the following link for the official solicitation and more details: https://www.bja.gov/Funding/fieldinitiated16.pdf