Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN)

NHTSA's Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) Master IDIQ, awarded July 5, 2017, is closed to new orders as of July 4, 2022, and is therefore inactive for business development purposes. The vehicle contracted in-depth crash investigation and multi-disciplinary research services to generate field-based injury biomechanics data supporting vehicle safety design and restraint performance analysis.

The vehicle is fully executed. Of $18.4 million in combined potential value across 11 task orders, $16.6 million (90 percent) is obligated. The most recent task-order award occurred September 28, 2021, followed by order velocity decline; the vehicle issued seven orders in 2017, three in 2018, and one in 2021. All task orders carried Cost No Fee or Firm Fixed Price pricing structures; no set-aside designations were used across the portfolio.

Work concentrated in academic medical research institutions. Emory University led with three orders totaling $4.4 million in potential value; Wake Forest University Health Sciences and The Medical College of Wisconsin each held two orders ($2.7 million and $1.6 million respectively). Five additional universities—Inova Health Care Services, Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia, University of Maryland Baltimore, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and one additional institution—rounded out the prime base. The top five primes captured 80 percent of combined potential value.

All 11 task orders funded NHTSA directly; no customer agency diversification occurred. Initial task orders (September 2017) established motor vehicle occupant enrollment efforts at six universities with five-year performance periods and ceiling values ranging from $1.6 million to $3.1 million. Subsequent orders (2018–2021) focused on pedestrian pilot studies and finite-element reconstruction protocols, typically with 18-month performance periods and ceiling values below $320,000. Place of performance was distributed across participating universities' campuses.

This vehicle is no longer available for new task-order pursuit.

The objectives of this acquisition are to expand NHTSA's, and the public's, understanding of human injury causation in motor vehicle crashes by conducting in-depth investigations and performing multi-disciplinary reviews of case subjects' outcomes. The data generated in these studies will provide the impact biomechanics and automobile safety community with highly-detailed field-based data that can support trend analysis and research related to advanced dummies and models, injury criteria, restraint performance, and vehicle design. Results of work conducted under this acquisition will facilitate the reduction of motor vehicle crash-related injuries and fatalities.