NIJ FY17 Research, Development, and Evaluation of Technologies to Improve School Safety | NIJ 2017 11462

Opportunity Information: Apply for NIJ 2017 11462

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), part of the U.S. Department of Justice, released the FY17 grant opportunity titled "Research, Development, and Evaluation of Technologies to Improve School Safety" (Funding Opportunity Number NIJ 2017 11462) to support practical, evidence-driven work on school safety technology. The program is designed to move beyond general discussions of security and instead fund projects that can show, with data, how particular tools, systems, or design strategies perform in real school environments. Awards are made as cooperative agreements, which typically means NIJ expects substantial involvement during the project period, such as coordination on research design, milestones, deliverables, and dissemination of findings.

The solicitation emphasizes two main kinds of projects. First, it funds efforts to demonstrate and evaluate existing technologies already on the market or in use, focusing on how well they work, under what conditions, and what tradeoffs they create. Second, it supports the development, demonstration, and evaluation of innovative technologies, meaning applicants can propose new or improved solutions as long as they include rigorous testing and assessment rather than stopping at prototyping. In both tracks, the central theme is evaluation: NIJ is looking for credible methods, measurable outcomes, and results that can inform real-world adoption decisions by schools, districts, and public safety partners.

A notable feature of this opportunity is that NIJ points applicants toward prior groundwork, especially NIJ-funded reports published in 2016 that document current uses of school safety technologies and identify gaps and needs. The solicitation also incorporates findings from literature reviews commissioned by NIJ that examine both the effectiveness of security approaches and how those approaches are perceived by students, staff, and the broader community. That dual focus signals that NIJ is not only interested in whether a technology reduces risk or improves response, but also whether it affects school climate, trust, and day-to-day functioning, since perceived safety and perceived surveillance can shape behavior and acceptance.

While the solicitation allows flexibility, it identifies several likely areas of emphasis. One is crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), which looks at how physical layout, access control, visibility, lighting, and natural surveillance can reduce opportunities for crime and improve guardianship without relying solely on hardware or enforcement. Another is data integration systems, which can include ways to connect or coordinate information across tools and stakeholders, such as linking access control, visitor management, communications, incident reporting, or emergency notification into a more coherent operational picture. NIJ also flags benefit-cost analyses as a priority, reflecting the need for decision makers to understand not just whether something works, but whether it is worth the money compared with alternatives, especially given tight school budgets. Finally, the solicitation highlights low-cost technology options, indicating interest in solutions that can be scaled and adopted broadly, including by resource-constrained districts, rather than only high-end systems affordable to a limited set of schools.

The opportunity is categorized under Law, Justice and Legal Services (CFDA 16.560) and is open to a wide range of applicants. Eligible applicants include state, county, and local governments; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status (excluding universities under that specific line item); individuals; for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and small businesses. This broad eligibility suggests NIJ anticipated multidisciplinary teams that might combine researchers, technology developers, school administrators, and public safety practitioners, as well as applicants capable of both technical development and rigorous evaluation.

In terms of funding and scale, the solicitation lists an award ceiling of $6,000,000, with an expectation of about 6 awards. The posting date was January 17, 2017, with an original closing date of March 30, 2017. Taken together, those figures suggest NIJ intended to fund a small number of relatively substantial projects, likely expecting strong methodological rigor, meaningful field demonstration components, and outputs that can guide national practice rather than purely local pilots.

Overall, this NIJ FY17 solicitation is best understood as a push to strengthen the evidence base for school safety technology. It encourages applicants to connect technology choices to measurable outcomes, to consider implementation realities and human factors (including perceptions of security), and to produce findings that help schools and communities make informed, cost-aware decisions about what to deploy, how to deploy it, and what impacts to expect.

• The Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice in the law, justice and legal services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NIJ FY17 Research, Development, and Evaluation of Technologies to Improve School Safety" 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 Jan 17, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 30, 2017. (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 $6,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), 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, Private institutions of higher education, Individuals, For profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses.

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