Forensic Science Center of Excellence Program | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offered this discretionary grant opportunity to create a Forensic Science Center of Excellence (COE) focused on accelerating the real-world adoption of probabilistic methods across the forensic science community. The intent was to fund a collaborative center where NIST researchers work side-by-side with interdisciplinary partners from academia and industry, with the practical goal of improving how forensic conclusions are generated, expressed, and understood, especially in two high-impact areas: pattern evidence (for example, comparisons involving impressions or other patterns) and digital evidence (for example, evidence derived from computers, mobile devices, and related systems). The COE concept is meant to serve as a hub that not only advances research, but also translates that work into methods and practices that laboratories and practitioners can actually use.

A major emphasis of the program is moving forensic interpretation toward probabilistic approaches, meaning approaches that quantify uncertainty and weight of evidence in a transparent, scientifically grounded way. To reach that end, the COE is expected to develop or strengthen the analytical methods and supporting measurement science needed for probabilistic reasoning in forensic casework. Just as importantly, the program highlights that new methods will not be widely adopted unless the field has the training and education capacity to use them competently. Because of that, the COE is also expected to build an education and training infrastructure aimed at key stakeholders, which can include forensic practitioners, laboratory leadership, researchers, attorneys, judges, and others who rely on or evaluate forensic results. Alongside method development and training, the opportunity explicitly calls for broad engagement with the forensic science community to promote competence building, encourage uptake, and help ensure that probabilistic approaches are implemented responsibly and consistently.

From an administrative standpoint, this opportunity was released under Funding Opportunity Number 2014 NIST FS COE 01 and titled the "Forensic Science Center of Excellence Program." The funding instrument was a cooperative agreement, which generally signals substantial involvement by the federal agency during the project period (for example, close collaboration, shared planning, or joint technical participation), aligning with the program model of NIST researchers collaborating directly with external partners. The activity category is listed as science and technology and other research and development, and it is associated with CFDA number 11.619 (Arrangements for Interdisciplinary Research Infrastructure). There was no cost sharing or matching requirement, reducing barriers for applicants and allowing the proposed work scope to be driven more by technical need than by required applicant contributions.

Eligibility was open to U.S.-based accredited institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, and commercial organizations organized and operated in the United States and its territories. Applicants were allowed to propose a team or consortium arrangement using subrecipients, contractors, and/or unfunded collaborators. In consortium structures, eligible subrecipients could include U.S. nonprofits, accredited universities, commercial organizations, and state, tribal, and local governments. Federal agencies could participate as partners but were not permitted to receive NIST funding through the award. A key constraint was that an organization could only serve as the lead on one application, which encourages applicants to consolidate partnerships rather than submit multiple competing proposals from the same lead entity.

The announcement was posted and created on August 19, 2014, with an original and current closing date of December 11, 2014, and it was archived on January 10, 2015. The listed agency contact for access issues related to the full announcement was Christopher Hunton, Grants Technical Assistant, at 301-975-5718. Overall, the opportunity was designed to create a national-level focal point for advancing probabilistic methods in forensic science, pairing research and standards expertise with broad community training and engagement so that improved scientific approaches could be adopted at scale in operational forensic settings.

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