Program AnnouncementHigh Energy Laser Joint Technology OfficeHIGH ENERGY LASER EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVESOLICITATION CONTENTS 1. Requirement Description 2. General Information 3. Program Schedule and Budget 4. Responses and Feedback 5. Focus Area 6. Proposal Preparation Instructions7. Evaluation Criteria8. Award 1. REQUIREMENT DESCRIPTION A. The High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office (JTO) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is interested in receiving proposals from offerors for the development and operation of an Educational Initiative program. This Program Announcement is issued under the authority of 10 USC 2358, which provides for the competitive selection of Grants and Cooperative Agreements. The Government anticipates that this Program Announcement will result in award of one grant. DoDs policy is to maximize use of competition in the award of grants. The program goals are to develop, implement, and operate a High Energy Laser (HEL) educational initiative program to establish opportunities to foster interest and education of HEL related technologies to the future workforce at all educational levels but, in particular, at the undergraduate and graduate college level and for the professional and technical development in HEL technology for the existing workforce. B. Communications, pursuant to this Program Announcement, shall be forwarded to Ms. Barbara Steinbock, Grants Officer, at AFRL/RDKB, Commercial 505-846-2246,
[email protected]. Technical questions should be communicated to Mr. Don Seeley of the HEL-JTO Program Office, commercial 505-248-8205,
[email protected]. GENERAL INFORMATIONA. Potential responders are notified that effective 1 Jan 1998, in order to be eligible to receive any DoD award, contractors must be registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) Database, unless a contractor meets any of the exceptions of DFARS 204.7302. On-line registration instructions can be accessed from the CCR home page http://www.ccr.gov/B. Disclosure Limitations. An Administrative Access to Proprietary Information consent provision is applicable to this announcement with anticipation of incorporation of the provision by reference into any resulting grant. This provision is included as Attachment C to this announcement. The consent form as well as the Non-FAR certifications must be signed and submitted with the proposal. All proposal packages should clearly indicate any limitations on the disclosure of proprietary information. Offerors are hereby notified that the Government intends to utilize the contractors Schafer Corporation, CC&G and Contract Allocation Services (CAS) for administrative purposes on the award of and final grant. All contractor personnel will sign a Nondisclosure Agreement and will not use the grant information for any purpose other than administration.C. Non-FAR Certifications. All proposals for assistance require certifications of compliance with national policy mandates. Statutes and Government-wide regulations require some certifications to be submitted at the time of proposal. These certifications are set forth at Appendix A to 32 CFR Part 25 regarding debarment, suspension, and other matters; Appendix C to 32 CFR 25 regarding drug-free workplace; and Appendix A to 32 CFR 28 regarding lobbying. The certifications are provided in Attachment 2.3. PROGRAM SCHEDULE AND BUDGETThe government anticipates awarding one Grant based upon submission of a proposal package, which will consist of a technical proposal, statement of work and a budget proposal. To be considered for evaluation, proposal packages must be submitted no later than 11 March 2009. HEL-JTO anticipates award of a grant by the middle of May 2009. The period of performance that will result from this solicitation will be five (5) years. To avoid delays in evaluation, all proposal packages must be prepared in accordance with the instructions included in this Program Announcement. All proposals submitted under this Announcement shall be valid for at least 90 days from the proposal date.The HEL-JTO budget for this Grant is $700K/year for a total value of $3.5M. Any concept exceeding the $700K/year limit will be excluded. This is an estimate only and not a promise for funding, as all funding is subject to change due to Government discretion and availability. 4. RESPONSES AND FEEDBACKLetters notifying offerors of the HEL-JTO decision to accept or reject their proposal package will be sent to the offerors after the evaluation has been completed. Offerors are cautioned that only a Grants Officer may obligate the Government to any agreement involving expenditure of government funds.5. EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE5.1. ObjectiveThere is a concern in the HEL community that fewer students are entering the scientific and engineering fields that will lead to professionals supporting on-going HEL activities. The objective of this grant is to build and expand awareness and interest of the HEL technical, scientific and engineering fields among the current and future workforce that will be required to continue and to grow current and future HEL technology, science prototype systems, programs, and test and evaluation capabilities for military HEL systems. 5.2. RequirementsThe HEL-JTO is seeking effective and innovative ideas coupled with proven approaches that can fulfill the objective stated above. Proposals that address only these requirements will be minimally acceptable. Proposals that offer additional, effective approaches have the potential to be considered exceeding minimally acceptable criterion. 5.2.1. Foster and expand graduate and undergraduate student interest in HEL sciences, technology and engineering. The intent is to provide a source of applicants into the HEL field for recruitment by government and industry. Proposers must be independent of the educational initiatives. Proposed work cannot be self-serving for the awardee of the grant.5.2.2. Provide educational opportunities for existing workforce entering the HEL field. The intent is to provide opportunities for new recruits with limited or no background in HEL technologies to have an opportunity to gain professional education in the HEL field.5.2.3. Provide an opportunity for publication of technical papers relating to HEL technology, system integration and test and evaluation activities. The intent is to provide a forum that HEL specific technical advances can be promulgated within the HEL community and provided to a larger audience.5.2.4. Provide for conferences and workshops that allow the HEL community an opportunity to share issues, ideas and concepts to further the development of HEL educational initiatives. 6.0 PROPOSAL PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS6.1 General Instructions a. Offerors must submit the proposal as a hard copy and on CD ROM in Microsoft word or pdf format or online at Grants.gov APPLY. The budget proposal shall be submitted as IBM PC compatible, Microsoft Excel (Version 2003 or Excel compatible version) files, to include cell formulas. Proposals must include a completed SF 424 to be considered. The proposals must be posted online or arrive by NLT 11 March 2009, 12:00PM Mountain Standard Time (MST) to Det 8 AFRL/RDKL, Attention: Mrs. Stephanie M. Beauchamp, 2251 Maxwell Blvd. SE, Bldg 499, Kirtland AFB, NM 87117-2773 to be considered. b. Offerors are advised that only grants officers are legally authorized to contractually bind or otherwise commit the government. c. The cost of preparing proposal packages (technical proposal, SOW, and budget proposal) in response to this Program Announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to the resulting grant. d. Proposal packages shall include a Technical Proposal (not more than ten pages, excluding the title page and attachments, a Statement of Work (SOW), and Budget Proposal. Technical proposals will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria as they relate to the objectives stated herein. Technical Proposals shall be no smaller than 12 font, Times New Roman. Title page will be formatted as follows: a. Title for Technical Proposal 1) Date Offer is Submitted2) Company Name 3) Contracting POC a. Name b. Address c. Phone/Fax d. E-Mail e. Signature 4) Program Manager a. Name b. Addressc. Phone/Faxd. E-Maile. Signature 5) Total Budget 6.2 Technical Proposals Technical proposals are intended to provide a specific approach to accomplishing the requirements in the offerors proposed Statement of Work. The technical proposal is limited to ten (10 pages), not including cover sheet. There is no specific format for technical proposals. Each technical proposal must provide an approach to meet the objectives of the SOW and qualifications and experience of the offeror. 6.3 Statement of Work 1. Proposal Packages shall include an offeror developed Statement of Work (SOW) detailing the tasks to be accomplished under this proposed effort, and suitable for incorporation into the resultant grant. (a) The SOW shall not include any proprietary information. (b) SOWs must identify all reviews of the efforts, including when/where (identify by milestone, event, or task) they will be conducted. (c) Any questions concerning the SOW preparation shall be referred to the Grants Officer. 6.4 Budget and Schedule 1. The budget proposal will not be restricted by page count and shall identify productive labor hours and skill mix associated with the effort. The offeror shall submit a major budget element schedule summarized by contractor fiscal year and rolled up to total budget. The proposed budget schedule shall display the proposed rates for direct labor, fringe benefits, indirect cost rates and/or factors, overhead, material handling, and any other direct costs (ODCs), G&A, cost of money (COM), New Mexico Gross Receipts Tax (NMGRT) if applicable, budgets from each lower tier offeror/Interorganizational Transfers, and/or consultants, and any other applicable burden or budget element, by fiscal year. The offeror shall also propose all estimated equipment, material, and travel, to support the effort and a breakout of the proposed budget for those items. No Profit/Fee will be paid on this grant. Proposals must stand-alone and be complete. This section should also include a program execution schedule; be sure to include the objectives and/or goals, major milestones, throughout the period of performance in this section. Budget detail should clearly identify costs, which are internal to the offeror and those that are used in pursuit of the objectives such as scholarships, educational products, course preparation, etc. The Tables furnished as Attachments 1 and 2 shall be completed for the entire performance period7.0 EVALUATION CRITERIAEvaluation Criteria: Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished using the criteria below. No further evaluation criteria will be used in assessing the proposals. Organization and clarity of information are critical to all of the evaluation criteria. The evaluation criteria are listed in order of precedence. (a) The overall innovativeness, merit and soundness of approach proposed toward the requirements stated herein. (b) The offerors capabilities including qualifications, experience, competence and availability of personnel. (c) Overall value and realism of the proposed effort.8.0 AWARDEach proposal will be evaluated independently. The government will follow the evaluation procedure described previously. No other evaluation factors will be used. The technical and budget proposals will be evaluated at the same time. The HEL-JTO reserves the right to select for award all, any part, or none of the proposals received. Only the Grants Officer will make awards and/or conduct negotiations with the selected offeror.Program initiation is dependent upon award of the Grant. Award will be made via government grants procedures to the offeror whose proposal package conforms to this Program Announcement and whose proposal is considered most advantageous to the government. AMENDMENT 0003 for Grant Solicitation: FA9451-09-1-0347 The intent of the wording, "self serving" in the solicitation is for the awardee not to fund a single source but multiple venues. It is required that educational institutions who propose to this grant and, as part of that proposal, must foster HEL technologies to outside entities. This must include 1) a plan to advertise all financial aid and scholarships to all of academia, in order to bring in a diverse audience of deserving individuals interested in the HEL field 2) a plan that demonstrates a method of independent evaluation and selection of award of applicants that prevents any appearance of conflict of interest in award of financial aid and scholarships to the proposing institution or its students.