DOJ to stop using outside experts to help vet competitive grant applicants
Summary
The Justice Department will stop using outside experts to review and rank competitive grant applications. Instead, department staff will handle the reviews internally, a change aimed at better aligning with current administration priorities.Key Facts
- The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) have used outside experts for peer review of grant applications for decades.
- Peer reviewers are independent experts who evaluate grant proposals for feasibility, criteria, and budget accuracy.
- This peer review process is modeled after a system used by the National Institutes of Health.
- The process helps ensure fair and impartial awarding of competitive federal grants, supporting law enforcement, victim services, and research projects.
- The Justice Department says the peer review program is now “inefficient and outdated” and does not align with administration goals.
- The peer review program will officially end in the fall.
- Staff within OJP and OVW will now conduct internal reviews, replacing outside experts.
- The previous 2025 attempt to switch to internal reviews caused problems due to lack of expertise among staff, but outside reviewers were later brought back temporarily.
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