Transportation Review Board of the National Academies - Minority Students Fellows Program

Pursuant to 13.106-1(b), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Office of Research and Development and Technology intends to negotiate a sole source purchase order with the Transportation Review Board (TRB) of the National Academies in order to support the TRB Minority Student Fellows Program. The TRB of the National Academies has been promoting and coordinating a new annual TRB Minority Student Fellows Pilot Program. The program has helped to support the travel, lodging, and subsistence expenses for minority students from a selected group of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and other minority-serving institutions to attend the TRB Annual Meeting and to present a student-authored research paper at a session at the meeting., Each of the eligible institutions participating in the program is invited to select one student from an underrepresented minority group from among its graduate students or advanced undergraduates in a transportation-related curriculum to participate in the program, and also to designate a faculty member to oversee the work of the student and to accompany the student to the TRB Annual Meeting. Under the program, stipends are provided to both the student and their faculty sponsor in the amount of $2,000 to $2,500, depending on the distance of their location from Washington, DC, where the TRB Annual Meeting is held; the total cost for a donor organization to sponsor one Fellow and their faculty sponsor is $5,000 annually. At inception of the pilot, TRB funded 4 students under this program from their own pockets. The FHWA is the first Federal agency to serve as a donor organization and has sponsored a student from 2013 to the present. FHWA wishes to continue to participate and help this program be successful. The intent of this notice is not to request competitive proposals, and any information received from interested parties will only be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether a competitive procurement should be conducted. However, interested parties may submit a description of their firm's capabilities for satisfying this requirement, which demonstrates they possess the ability to successfully perform this effort. The responses must be received by December 30, 2016 at 12:00 PM Eastern. All questions concerning this matter should be addressed directly to Ms. Courtney Palmer at [email protected].