NIJ FY24 Domestic Radicalization and Violent Extremism Research Center of Excellence | O NIJ 2024 171923

Opportunity Information: Apply for O NIJ 2024 171923

The NIJ FY24 Domestic Radicalization and Violent Extremism Research Center of Excellence opportunity is a U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice solicitation to fund the creation of a single Center of Excellence focused on domestic radicalization to violent extremism in the United States. NIJ is looking for an applicant that can serve as the national hub for rigorous research and evaluation in this area, while also ensuring that what is learned does not stay in academic journals but is translated into practical tools that agencies and community practitioners can use. The award is structured as a cooperative agreement, which typically means NIJ expects substantial involvement and coordination during the project rather than a hands-off grant relationship. The overall purpose aligns with DOJ and OJP priorities around advancing civil rights and equity, strengthening community safety, improving access to justice, supporting victims and justice-impacted individuals, and building trust between law enforcement and communities.

At its core, the Center is expected to carry out four major functions. First, it must conduct and/or support a portfolio of rigorous research, evaluation, and demonstration projects that improve understanding of how domestic radicalization to violent extremism develops and how intervention and prevention strategies can be made more effective and evidence-based. The solicitation anticipates that the Center may directly conduct some studies and also issue multiple sub-awards to support additional projects, allowing the Center to build a broader research pipeline than one organization could manage alone. Second, the Center must assess and continually refine the field's research needs, essentially acting as a forward-looking mechanism to identify gaps, emerging trends, and priority questions that should shape future work. Third, it must translate and disseminate knowledge by developing evidence-driven best practices and guidelines designed for immediate practitioner use, emphasizing practical relevance and clarity over purely theoretical outputs. Fourth, it must support training, education, and professional development for practitioners engaged in extremism prevention and intervention, using the Center's evidence-driven guidance as the backbone for capacity-building.

NIJ signals several themes that will affect how proposals are judged. One is meaningful engagement with people who have lived experience related to the subject, which can include justice practitioners, community members, victims, service providers, and people who have been involved with the justice system. Another is the expectation of multidisciplinary teams, encouraging applicants to combine complementary methods and expertise (for example, criminology, psychology, sociology, public health, data science, program evaluation, and practitioner expertise). NIJ also wants applicants to explicitly consider and measure issues tied to diversity, discrimination, and bias, with attention to factors like age, gender and gender identity, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation when relevant to the research questions and populations being studied. In other words, proposals should not treat equity considerations as a brief add-on, but as something built into study design, measurement, and interpretation.

Partnerships with criminal justice or other agencies are allowed and often essential for credible evaluation and access to real-world settings and data, but NIJ sets clear expectations for documentation and data stewardship. Applications that involve these partnerships should include letters of support signed by appropriate decision-makers at each partner agency. Those letters must acknowledge that de-identified data generated through the NIJ-funded work will be archived with the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the end of the award, consistent with NIJ data archiving guidance. If an award is made, the grantee is expected to have formal agreements with partner agencies in place by January 1, 2025, and those agreements must include provisions that enable compliance with the data archiving requirement. This is an important operational detail because it means applicants should plan early for data governance, permissions, and de-identification processes rather than waiting until the end of the project.

A major emphasis of the solicitation is dissemination that leads to real-world impact. NIJ is not just asking for reports; it is asking for robust, creative, multi-pronged dissemination strategies, ideally built around strategic partnerships with organizations and associations that can move findings into policy and practice. The solicitation even introduces a budget-based incentive: proposals that dedicate at least 15 percent of requested funds to implementing dissemination strategies (as shown in the budget worksheet and narrative) receive special consideration. That signals NIJ is prioritizing a Center that can function as both a research engine and a national translator of evidence into actionable guidance, with a communications and implementation plan strong enough to reach practitioners where they actually operate.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is a discretionary award under CFDA 16.560, with an award ceiling of $7,000,000 and an expectation of one award, meaning NIJ intends to select a single lead entity to run the Center. Eligibility is broad and includes state, county, and local governments; tribal governments and tribal organizations; public and private institutions of higher education; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status; public housing authorities; for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) and small businesses. However, even if multiple organizations are involved, only one entity can be the applicant; any additional partners that will receive federal funds must be structured as subrecipients. NIJ also states that the applicant is expected to conduct the majority of the work, which limits purely pass-through models and reinforces that the lead organization must have substantial internal capacity to manage research, sub-awards, dissemination, and training. The opportunity number is O-NIJ-2024-171923, it was created on November 30, 2023, and the original closing date was February 15, 2024.

• The National Institute of Justice in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NIJ FY24 Domestic Radicalization and Violent Extremism Research Center of Excellence" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.560.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-11-30.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-02-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $7,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Unrestricted.

Apply for O NIJ 2024 171923

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