Paul Coverdell Forensic Sciences Improvement Grant Program

Program goal(s) name: Improve forensic science and medical examiner/coroner services.
Program goal(s) description: Demonstrate improvement over current operations in forensic science or medical examiner/coroner services, including services provided by laboratories. Reduction in forensic analysis backlogs is considered an improvement in timeliness of services.
Program objective(s) name: Educate forensic pathologists and eliminate backlogs.
Program objective(s) description: Educate and train forensic pathologists; eliminate a backlog in the analysis of forensic science evidence, including backlog with respect to firearms examination, latent prints, impression evidence, toxicology, digital evidence, fire evidence, controlled substances, forensic pathology, questioned documents, and trace evidence; train, assist, and employ forensic laboratory personnel and medicolegal death investigators, as needed, to eliminate such a backlog; and fund medicolegal death investigation systems to facilitate accreditation of medical examiner and coroner offices and certification of medicolegal death investigators.

All final award decisions will be made by the Assistant Attorney General, unless a statute explicitly authorizes award decisions by another official or there is written delegation of authority to another official. For successful applicants, JustGrants will send a system-generated email to the Application Submitter, Authorized Representative, and Entity Administrator with information on accessing their official award package in JustGrants. The award package will include key information (such as funding amount and period of performance) as well as award conditions that must be followed. The Authorized Representative for the entity should accept or decline the award within 45 days of the notification.

The review procedure for applications is specified in the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and generally includes eligibility and responsiveness, merit, programmatic, budget, and risk reviews.