The Department of Justice (DOJ), Associate Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has a requirement for technical assistance and logistical support required for peer reviews and other peer review-related activities.

Office of Justice Programs is the largest grantmaking component of the Department of Justice and houses the Department’s criminal and juvenile justice, science, statistics, and programmatic agencies. OJP provides federal leadership, funding, training and technical assistance, research and statistics, and other critical resources to advance work that strengthens community safety, promotes civil rights, increases access to justice, supports crime victims and individuals impacted by the justice system, and builds trust between law enforcement and communities. OJP comprises six program offices which develop notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) and manage the programmatic review of applications. The program offices are Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Office of Sexual Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART Office) and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC).

The contractor will manage the technical assistance and provide the logistical support required for peer reviews and other peer review-related activities that support OJP’s mission. The contractor must be attentive to detail, excel at making logistical arrangements and decisions, and be responsive to OJP’s needs. In fiscal year 2024, OJP peer reviewed 153 notices of funding opportunities that received around 6200 applications requiring nearly 1700 peer reviewers to provide assessments. Additionally, the contractor will be required to coordinate with other OJP contractors and partners to accomplish the tasks required under this order. All OJP peer reviews supported under this order will be conducted using OJP’s grants management system and other systems. Therefore, the contractor must coordinate with OJP to obtain training to ensure that peer reviewers and contractor staff can use the OJP system functionalities.

1) Peer Review Planning and Management

• Recommend enhancements to and implement practices in accordance with the OJP peer review standard operating procedures;
• Recommend updates to the OJP peer review training materials for both internal staff (OJP employees) and external individuals (peer reviewers), ad update the OJP peer review training materials upon approval of the recommended changes;
• Assist in the facilitation of the OJP peer review training for both internal staff (OJP employees) and external individuals (peer reviewers);
• Develop and implement an outreach strategy to recruit reviewers with relevant experience;
• Assess individuals’ applications to become peer reviewers and provide recommendations to OJP staff in order to ensure the quality of the peer reviewer pool meets OJP standards;
• Analyze peer reviewer data and prepare reports;
• Hold kick-off meetings with each program office;
• Hold notice of funding opportunity forecast meetings to set schedules;
• Manage and track meeting logistics and schedules;
• Develop automated standard forms and guidance documents;
• Estimate the budget of the peer review and track costs;
• Execute statements of work with peer reviewers as identified by OJP;
• Process invoices for peer reviewer work and make payments to peer reviewers;
• Initiate OJP system accounts for the peer reviewers;
• Organize peer review panels;
• Arrange and conduct orientation calls with peer reviewers and record the calls for playback for missing reviewers;
• Coordinate with staff in the facilitation of the peer reviewer orientation calls;
• Assemble peer review panels;
• Assign applications to peer reviewers;
• Collect, track, and manage documentation for each notice of funding opportunity (NOFO);
• Develop and implement a Quality Control Plan (QCP)

2) Basic Minimum Requirements Review

• Conduct the basic minimum requirements (BMR) review of the applications submitted into the OJP grants management system;
• Communicate BMR findings to OJP program offices;
• Draft notices to the applicants that did not pass BMR review;
• Send BMR letters through the OJP email system.

3) Peer Review Format Management

OJP program offices may select one of the following types of peer review:

• Collaboration Review – Peer reviewers complete an initial review of the applications online and enter scores and comments of the merit of the applications in the system. Then, peer reviewers participate in a virtual collaboration meeting to discuss their initial assessments before finalizing their scores and comments in the system.
• Initial Only Review – Peer reviewers complete only the online application review in the system without convening a collaboration meeting.
• In-person Collaboration Review – Peer reviewers review the merit of applications online and then travel to a meeting to discuss scores and comments. Scores and comments are finalized as a group at the meeting.
• Standing Review Panel – A group of reviewers serve for a term of two to three years to review the technical merit of applications under multiple NOFOs and participate in virtual or in-person collaboration meetings to discuss the applications.
• Concept Paper Review – Peer reviewers assess brief narratives to evaluate the merit of the concept paper. Applicants whose concept papers are determined to be most promising are invited to submit full proposals that peer reviewers then assess using collaboration reviews.