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The Law & Science Program considers proposals that address social scientific studies of law and law-like systems of rules, as well as studies of how science and technology are applied in legal contexts. The Program is inherently interdisciplinary and multi-methodological. Successful proposals describe research that advances scientific theory and understanding of the connections between human behavior and law, legal institutions, or legal processes; or the interactions of law and basic sciences, including biology, computer and information sciences, STEM education, engineering, geosciences, and math and physical sciences. Scientific studies of law often approach law as dynamic, interacting with multiple arenas, and with the participation of multiple actors. Fields of study include many disciplines, and often address problems including, though not limited, to: Crime, Violence, and Policing Cyberspace Economic Issues Environmental Science Evidentiary Issues Forensic Science Governance and Courts Human Rights and Comparative Law Information Technology Legal and Ethical Issues related to Science Legal Decision Making Legal Mobilization and Conceptions of Justice Litigation and the Legal Profession Punishment and Corrections Regulation and Facilitation of Biotechnology (e.g., Gene Editing, Gene Testing, Synthetic Biology) and Other Emerging Sciences and Technologies Use of Science in the Legal Processes

This cooperative agreement will support the implementation of T/TA strategies designed for CSBG-eligible entities to help address legal issues in three major focus areas: (1) providing organizational stability and support for CSBG-eligible entities experiencing significant fiscal or organizational challenges, including consultation focused on entities that are considering legal options for strategic restructuring, shared administrative or service arrangements, or mergers; (2) providing education and training to enhance general knowledge and understanding of CSBG statutory and regulatory requirements and the ability to address changing legal and regulatory issues affecting CSBG-eligible entities in the CSBG Network; and (3) promoting exemplary legal practices and policies related to organizational approaches that help promote innovation, accountability, and responsiveness to specific community needs related to the reduction of poverty, the revitalization of low-income communities, and the empowerment of low-income families and individuals in rural and urban areas to become fully self-sufficient. To ensure this occurs, the grantee is expected to partner with the CSBG Organizational Standards Center of Excellence (COE) and provide T/TA to CSBG-eligible entities on legal topics particularly relevant to compliance with 45 CFR Part 75 and CSBG organizational standards.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) will award one cooperative agreement on a competitive basis for a period of three years to operate the Runaway and Homeless Youth National Communication System (NCS) Program. The NCS Program is a dedicated toll-free, U.S. national communication system that provides information, referral services, crisis intervention, prevention approaches, and communication services to vulnerable, at-risk, and runaway and homeless youth and their families or legal guardians. The purpose of the NCS is to a) prevent youth from running away and becoming homeless, and b) link youth with a family member or guardian, and/or an available resource that can provide and/or assist the youth in acquiring needed services. To fulfill the objectives of the legislation, the NCS must provide, among other services, a neutral and confidential channel of communication that is available on a 24-hours per day, seven days per week, basis throughout the United States so that youth contemplating running away and runaway and homeless youth may re-establish contact with their parents or legal guardians if possible. The NCS Program is also expected to work closely and collaboratively with FYSB to fulfill its mission as the federally funded communication system for runaway and homeless youth. A full description of services that will be required of the NCS grantee will provided in the published announcement.

NIJ is seeking applications for rigorous program evaluation of specific services for victims of crime including housing, legal assistance, and technology-based services. This solicitation is for a planning phase not to exceed a 24 month period of performance.

The Smart and Autonomous Systems (S&AS) program focuses on Intelligent Physical Systems (IPS) that are cognizant, taskable, reflective, ethical, and knowledge-rich. The S&AS program welcomes research on IPS that are aware of their capabilities and limitations, leading to long-term autonomy requiring minimal or no human operator intervention. Example IPS include, but are not limited to, robotic platforms and networked systems that combine computing, sensing, communication, and actuation. Cognizant IPS exhibit high-level awareness beyond primitive actions, in support of persistent and long-term autonomy. Taskable IPS can interpret high-level, possibly vague, instructions, translating them into concrete actions that are dependent on the particular context in which the IPS is operating. Reflective IPS can learn from their own experiences and those of other entities, such as other IPS or humans, and from instruction or observation; they may exhibit self-aware and self-optimizing capabilities. Ethical IPS should adhere to a system of societal and legal rules, taking those rules into account when making decisions. Knowledge-rich IPS employ a variety of representation and reasoning mechanisms, such as semantic, probabilistic and commonsense reasoning; are cognitively plausible; reason about uncertainty in decision making; and reason about the intentions of other entities in decision making.

The Smart and Autonomous Systems (S&AS) program focuses on Intelligent Physical Systems (IPS) that are cognizant, taskable, reflective, ethical, and knowledge-rich. The S&AS program welcomes research on IPS that are aware of their capabilities and limitations, leading to long-term autonomy requiring minimal or no human operator intervention. Example IPS include, but are not limited to, robotic platforms and networked systems that combine computing, sensing, communication, and actuation. Cognizant IPS exhibit high-level awareness beyond primitive actions, in support of persistent and long-term autonomy. Taskable IPS can interpret high-level, possibly vague, instructions, translating them into concrete actions that are dependent on the particular context in which the IPS is operating. Reflective IPS can learn from their own experiences and those of other entities, such as other IPS or humans, and from instruction or observation; they may exhibit self-aware and self-optimizing capabilities. Ethical IPS should adhere to a system of societal and legal rules, taking those rules into account when making decisions. Knowledge-rich IPS employ a variety of representation and reasoning mechanisms, such as semantic, probabilistic and commonsense reasoning; are cognitively plausible; reason about uncertainty in decision making; and reason about the intentions of other entities in decision making.

The goals of the Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Processes and Systems (RIPS) solicitation are (1) to foster an interdisciplinary research community that discovers new knowledge for the design and operation of infrastructures as processes and services  (2) to enhance the understanding and design of interdependent critical infrastructure systems (ICIs) and processes that provide essential goods and services despite disruptions and failures from any cause, natural, technological, or malicious, and (3) to create the knowledge for innovation in ICIs to advance society with new goods and services. The objectives of this solicitation are: Create theoretical frameworks and multidisciplinary computational models of interdependent infrastructure systems, processes and services, capable of analytical prediction of complex behaviors, in response to system and policy changes. Synthesize new approaches to increase resilience, interoperations, performance, and readiness in ICIs. Understand organizational, social, psychological, legal, political and economic obstacles to improving ICI's, and identifying strategies for overcoming those obstacles. The RIPS solicitation seeks proposals with transformative ideas that will ensure ICIs services are effective, efficient, dependable, adaptable, resilient, safe, and secure.  Successful proposals are expected to study multiple infrastructures focusing on them as interdependent systems that deliver services, enabling a new interdisciplinary paradigm in infrastructure research.  Proposals that do not broadly integrate across the cyber-physical, engineering and social, behavioral and economic (SBE) sciences may be returned without review. 

The program supports four main research thrusts that are envisioned to advance the goal of ubiquitous co-robots: scalability, customizability, lowering barriers to entry, and societal impact. Topics addressing scalability include how robots can collaborate effectively with multiple humans or other robots; how robots can perceive, plan, act, and learn in uncertain, real-world environments, especially in a distributed fashion; and how to facilitate large-scale, safe, robust and reliable operation of robots in complex environments. Customizability includes how to enable co-robots to adapt to specific tasks, environments, or people, with minimal modification to hardware and software; how robots can personalize their interactions with people; and how robots can communicate naturally with humans, both verbally and non-verbally. Topics in lowering barriers to entry should focus on lowering the barriers for conducting fundamental robotics research and research on integrated robotics application. This may include development of open-source co-robot hardware and software, as well as widely-accessible testbeds. Outreach or using robots in educational programs do not, by themselves, lower the barriers to entry for robotics research. Topics in societal impact include fundamental research to establish and infuse robotics into educational curricula, advance the robotics workforce through education pathways, and explore the social, economic, ethical, and legal implications of our future with ubiquitous collaborative robots.

The program supports four main research thrusts that are envisioned to advance the goal of ubiquitous co-robots: scalability, customizability, lowering barriers to entry, and societal impact. Topics addressing scalability include how robots can collaborate effectively with multiple humans or other robots; how robots can perceive, plan, act, and learn in uncertain, real-world environments, especially in a distributed fashion; and how to facilitate large-scale, safe, robust and reliable operation of robots in complex environments. Customizability includes how to enable co-robots to adapt to specific tasks, environments, or people, with minimal modification to hardware and software; how robots can personalize their interactions with people; and how robots can communicate naturally with humans, both verbally and non-verbally. Topics in lowering barriers to entry include development of open-source co-robot hardware and software, as well as widely-accessible testbeds. Topics in societal impact include fundamental research to establish and infuse robotics into educational curricula, advance the robotics workforce through education pathways, and explore the social, economic, ethical, and legal implications of our future with ubiquitous collaborative robots.

The program supports four main research themes that are envisioned to advance the goal of ubiquitous co-robots:scalability,customizability,lowering barriers to entry, andsocietal impact,includinghuman safety. Topics addressingscalabilityinclude how robots can collaborate effectively with orders of magnitude more humans or other robots than is handled by the current state of the art; how robots can perceive, plan, act, and learn in uncertain, real-world environments, especially in a distributed fashion; and how to facilitate large-scale, safe, robust and reliable operation of robots in complex environments.Customizabilityincludes how to enable co-robots to adapt to specific different tasks, environments, or people, with minimal modification to hardware and software; how robots can personalize their interactions with people; and how robots can communicate naturally with humans, both verbally and non-verbally. Topics inlowering barriers to entryshould focus on lowering the barriers for conducting fundamental roboticsresearchand research on integrated robotics application. This may include development of open-source co-robot hardware and software, as well as widely-accessible testbeds. Outreach or using robots in educational programs do not, by themselves, lower the barriers to entry for robotics research. Topics insocietal impactinclude fundamental research to establish and infuse robotics into educational curricula, advance the robotics workforce through education pathways, and explore the social, economic, ethical, security, and legal implications of our future with ubiquitous collaborative robots.