CREH Amendment 1 Questions and Responses.pdf

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT

NOTICE No. 80GSFC20R0046

A Cooperative Agreement Notice for the

Establishment of a Center for Research and Exploration in Heliophysics

AMENDMENT #1

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS

The following are responses to questions received from the CAN. In addition, where changes were made to the CAN because of the questions received, those sections

(4.3.1 and 5.4(c)) has been updated to reflect the change. A copy of the updated can will be attached to this amendment.

1. Question: The government anticipates and has planned for a budget of approximately $65 Million over five years. Is $65M a hard cap on the total funding requested? How will NASA handle future funding that exceeds the cap?

Response: Budgets are uncertain and the $65M is a projection. If more funding is needed than the originally proposed budget, the Government will address future funding issues through an augmentation to the budget of the cooperative agreement that is in accordance with the NASA Grants and Cooperative

Agreement Manual (GCAM) procedures at 6.6(e), Augmentations.

2. Question: Direct labor categories, labor hours, and labor costs associated with the research effort. Could you please confirm that the term associated with the research effort includes those administrative functions that can be direct-charged per 2 CFR 200?

Response: Yes, the government can confirm that the term "associated with the research effort" includes those administrative functions that can be direct-charged per 2 CFR 200.

3. Question: The qualifications of the proposed key personnel (up to ten members of the Proposer’s team) to contribute to the proposed research will be evaluated for thoroughness, relevance, and merit, based on their relevant past accomplishments. Is there any way to waive the limit of 10 key personnel?

Response: The government believes that 10 key personnel should be sufficient; however, the government is willing to accept a maximum of up to 20 key personnel.

4. Question: Proposers should propose an approach for location of CREH researchers if not on-site at GSFC, and for use of any laboratory capabilities that could complement and extend the research capability at Goddard. Please clarify if the requirement to propose off-site facilities is intended to encompass the entire research staff in the event that GSFC access is not available to contractor personnel, or if it refers to short-term visitors and/or some smaller population of the full research staff? Would NASA impose specific IT and physical security requirements that must be followed for accommodating off-site personnel and laboratory space? How would this affect the indirect cost rate charged to the agreement activities? If the alternate sites were on-campus at any of the partner institutions, those costs could rise significantly.

Response: The referenced area entitled Facilities in Section 2.4 of the CAN focus is on normal operations and not the current pandemic (Covid19) situation.

It is the government’s intention to continue to host the majority of the personnel on the GSFC Center with a small portion being hosted by the recipient. If the recipient has, a facility that they believe will be advantageous to the government and that will greatly enhance their proposal, the government will be amenable to receiving that information. In general, NASA imposes IT security requirements only on systems that connect to NASA systems and do not impose physical security requirements on offsite facilities associated with cooperative agreements.

If there are costs associated with offsite work those should be described in the budget.

5. Question: The page limitation on the cost section is 7 pages. The cost portion of the proposal must be submitted in Microsoft Excel for Windows. It will be straightforward to include an editable Excel spreadsheet with the uploads to the

LFT system, but the spreadsheet cannot be presented in 7 pages for the hard copy version. Please clarify if the 7 pages refers to the hard copy or the electronic editable version.

Response: The seven pages referenced in the CAN applies to the budget narrative, but there is no limit on the excel spreadsheets.