OVW FY 2020 Research and Evaluation Initiative | OVW 2020 18032

Opportunity Information: Apply for OVW 2020 18032

The OVW FY 2020 Research and Evaluation (R and E) Initiative, also referred to as RampE, is a discretionary grant opportunity from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women. Its core goal is to build practical, usable evidence about what works to prevent and respond to domestic violence and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The program is framed around strengthening the field's ability to both support victims effectively and hold offenders accountable, with the larger intent that communities receiving Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) funding can better align their policies and programs with approaches that have demonstrated results. In addition to validating existing strategies, the initiative is also meant to test and document new or promising practices so that future decisions can be grounded in empirical findings rather than assumptions or tradition.

A central feature of the initiative is its emphasis on researcher-practitioner partnerships. In practice, that means projects are expected to connect the people who deliver services, investigate cases, prosecute offenses, provide legal assistance, or operate coordinated community responses with researchers who can design and implement rigorous evaluations. The idea is to ensure the research questions are relevant to real-world implementation, the data collected are meaningful for improving practice, and the findings can be translated into operational changes rather than sitting on a shelf. The initiative supports a broad range of research designs and methodologies, explicitly including qualitative approaches, mixed-methods work, and quasi-experimental designs, which signals an openness to studying complex systems where randomized controlled trials may be impractical or inappropriate.

From an administrative standpoint, this opportunity was published under Funding Opportunity Number OVW 2020 18032, within CFDA 16.026. It was categorized as a discretionary grant, with activity areas spanning information and statistics, law and justice and legal services, and science and technology and other research and development. The solicitation was created on January 15, 2020, with an original application deadline of March 25, 2020. OVW anticipated making about six awards under this announcement, and the maximum award amount (the award ceiling) was $450,000 per grant.

Eligibility was broad and designed to allow both community-based implementers and research-capable institutions to participate. Eligible applicants included state, county, and city or township governments; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; other Native American tribal organizations; and nonprofit organizations, including both 501(c)(3) nonprofits and nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status (so long as they are not institutions of higher education). Taken together, these eligibility categories reinforce the program's intent to foster cross-sector evaluation work that can be embedded in real service and justice settings, while still ensuring applicants have (or can partner to access) the research capacity needed to produce credible findings.

• The Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women in the information and statistics, law, justice and legal services, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "OVW FY 2020 Research and Evaluation Initiative" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.026.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jan 15, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 25, 2020. (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 $450,000.00 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, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for OVW 2020 18032

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: