21-05 Amend 2 first repub.docx

AMENDMENT 2 TO BAA FA8750-21-S-7005

The purpose of this modification is to republish the original announcement, incorporating any previous amendments, pursuant to FAR 35.016(c).

This republishing also includes the following changes:

1. Part I, Overview Information:

0. Updated references of Beta SAM to SAM throughout;

0. Updates the guidance regarding white paper submissions;

1. Part II, Full Text Announcement:

1. Section III, adds paragraph 4;

1. Section IV.1, updates the guidance regarding white paper submissions;

1. Section IV.4, adds paragraph g;

1. Section V.2.a, updates Review and Selection Process language;

1. Section VI.1, updates the Proposal Formatting language;

1. Section VI.7, updates the applicable provisions;

1. Section VII, updates the OMBUDSMAN No other changes are made.

NAICS CODE: 541715

FEDERAL AGENCY NAME: Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514

BAA ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Modification

BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: Marionette: A Multi-Domain Command and Control (C2) Decision Calculus for Complexity Imposition

BAA NUMBER: FA8750-21-S-7005

PART I – OVERVIEW INFORMATION

This announcement is for an Open, 2 Step BAA which is open and effective until 30 Sep 2024. Only white papers will be accepted as initial submissions; formal proposals will be accepted by invitation only. While white papers will be considered if received prior to 4pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 30 Sep 2024, the following submission dates are suggested to best align with projected funding:

FY 21 by 16 APR 2021 FY 22 by 30 SEP 2021

All potential Offerors are requested to wait to submit white papers for future fiscal years (FYs) until the BAA announcement is updated with specific dates. The BAA will be amended to include new and updated in-scope technology requirements in FYs 23-25.

Offerors should monitor the Contract Opportunities on the SAM website at https://SAM.gov/ in the event this announcement is amended.

CONCISE SUMMARY OF TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT: Seeking innovative research to develop the concept of complexity imposition as a tool that can be used to optimally shape outcomes for specific operational contexts. The goal is to develop a framework for reasoning about complexity properties against MD courses of action in order to begin to assess the collective impact that such courses of action have against the adversary.

BAA ESTIMATED FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $9,900,000. Individual awards will not normally exceed 24 months with dollar amounts normally ranging from $500,000 to $1,000,000. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount.

ANTICIPATED INDIVIDUAL AWARDS: Multiple Awards are anticipated.

TYPE OF INSTRUMENTS THAT MAY BE AWARDED: Procurement contracts, grants, cooperative agreements or other transactions (OT) depending upon the nature of the work proposed. In the event that an Other Transaction for Prototype agreement is awarded as a result of this competitive BAA, and the prototype project is successfully completed, there is the potential for a prototype project to transition to award of a follow-on production contract or transaction. The Other Transaction for Prototype agreement itself will also contain a similar notice of a potential follow-on production contract or agreement.

AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION: All white paper submissions and any questions of a technical nature shall be directed to the cognizant Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) as specified below (unless otherwise specified in the technical area):

Marionette: A Multi-Domain C2 Decision Calculus for Complexity Imposition TPOC:

Dr. Jessica Dorismond

AFRL/RISA

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: (315)330-2168 Email: jessica.dorismond@us.af.mil

BAA MANAGER:

Asher Sinclair

AFRL/RISA

525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Email: asher.sinclair.1@us.af.mil

Questions of a contractual/business nature shall be directed to the cognizant contracting officer, as specified below (email requests are preferred):

Amber Buckley Telephone (315) 330-3605 Email: Amber.Buckley@us.af.mil

Emails must reference the solicitation (BAA) number and title of the acquisition.

Pre-Proposal Communication between Prospective Offerors and Government Representatives: Dialogue between prospective offerors and Government representatives is encouraged. Technical and contracting questions can be resolved in writing or through open discussions. Discussions with any of the points of contact shall not constitute a commitment by the Government to subsequently fund or award any proposed effort. Only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government.

Offerors are cautioned that evaluation ratings may be lowered and/or proposal rejected if proposal preparation (Proposal format, content, etc.) and/or submittal instructions are not followed.

PART II – FULL TEXT ANNOUNCEMENT

BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: Marionette: A Multi-Domain C2 Decision Calculus for Complexity Imposition

BAA NUMBER: FA8750-21-S-7005

CATALOG OF FEDERAL DOMESTIC ASSISTANCE (CFDA) Number: 12.800

I. TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS:

Executive Summary The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is soliciting white papers under this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the research and development of technologies and techniques to construct a mathematical framework to quantify the potential complexity imposed by Blue multi-domain (MD) courses of action upon an adversary.

The need for joint and MD courses of action is in response to the increasingly complex environment associated with modern warfare. Control over the complex environment of operations, across multiple domains, is what the U.S. seeks in order to gain a strategic decision advantage. One of the guiding principles of the U.S. Air Force 2030 Science and Technology Strategy is that the Air Force (AF) will dominate in complexity across all operating domains to both protect the homeland and to project power. By harnessing the power of complexity, adversaries will be presented with an ever-growing number of challenges that will demand resource prioritization, increase vulnerabilities, and impart overwhelming confusion, thereby giving the U.S. an operational advantage across all battlespace domains.

There exists preliminary work across AF and AFRL on defining and investigating complexity and its role within modern warfare. However, there has been much less research devoted to exploring a decision framework or calculus that would drive the quantification of MD courses of action to ultimately enable the selection of a course of action (not necessarily unique) that maximally places the adversary on the horns of multiple dilemmas[footnoteRef:2]. [2: ANNEX 3 99 DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE ROLE IN JOINT ALL DOMAIN OPERATIONS https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Operational-Level-Doctrine/Annex-3-99-DAF-Role-in-Jt-All-Domain-Ops-JADO/ ]

Towards this goal, this BAA seeks creative and novel approaches for a first-of-a-kind mathematical framework to quantify and analyze MD courses of action through the lens of complexity. The Government’s hypothesis is that complexity can be used as an overarching construct for the comparison, packaging, and quantification of MD courses of action that lead to desirable MD effects. The action space spans warfighting domains, kinetic and non-kinetic options and both strategic and tactical options.

Due to the complexity of both the space of possible COAs and of adversary decision frameworks, any solution must be approached in a principled fashion, based on well-founded scientific and mathematical constructs. The Government wishes to quantify and explore the impact of the adversary dilemmas from the construct of complexity. Note that efforts under this BAA, the Government will provide offerors with the adversary model, various courses of action, and a scenario to construct the framework for quantification and analysis.

Background on Complexity and Modern Warfare Complexity in warfare can be viewed through the lens of the complexity of systems, where the Blue and Red decision-making processes consist of very large, multi-dimensional systems. From the Blue perspective, Blue system complexity can be used to present challenges to an adversary. Conversely, the Government can exploit the complexity of Red’s system to Blue’s advantage. This can be formulated as imposing system complexity through a series of deliberate MD courses of action that increase an aspect of the complexity of the operating environment to make it more challenging for an adversary to make decisions and achieve its objectives. A course of action is an action or a combination of actions, where each action is applied to either one or many states of an adversary decision calculus. The Government considers the respective systems to be the complex adaptive Blue and Red decision-making apparatus. They span the operating, functional, and organizational attributes of the C2 systems of systems, as well as the physical assets and effects. The goal is to manipulate these systems through complex actions and effects to shape adversary behavior in Blue’s favor. In order to understand complexity in modern warfare, the Government will identify key warfighting properties of complex adaptive systems and methods to impose complexity in Figure 1. Note that this is not necessarily a complete or exhaustive list. The Government anticipates that additional characteristics will be identified.

Figure 1: Properties of Complex Adaptive Systems and Methods to Impose Complexity These complex adaptive system properties and avenues for complexity imposition set the stage for constructing a framework for quantifying courses of action against an adversary. A more detailed discussion of these attributes and the rationale behind them can be found in Appendix 1 (Identifying the Complex Aspects of a System) of this solicitation. The Government is interested in developing a means to map these properties to courses of action and corresponding effects to provide a calculus to quantify and assess the overall impact (or level of complexity imposed) on an adversary with the goal of meeting U.S. objectives.

Program Goals This work seeks to develop the concept of complexity imposition as a tool that can be used to optimally shape outcomes for specific operational contexts. The manipulation of complex systems offers a way to identify and assess how such systems might be externally influenced. Furthermore, the Government can study how delivering combined effects systematically imposes complexity to force multiple dilemmas on an adversary. The targets of the Government’s complexity imposition are adversarial decision makers, as they must navigate the decision calculus to arrive at strategic or operational decisions in response to U.S. imposition.

By beginning with the set of presented attributes common to most complex adaptive systems, the Government can then consider influencing the state of a system by manipulating some set of system characteristics to U.S. advantage. It is this modeling and state change that the Government seeks to formalize and assess.

The goal is to develop the underlying framework for reasoning about complexity properties against MD courses of action in order to begin to assess the collective impact that such courses of action have against the adversary. The Government seeks a framework that enables the exploration of imposing increasing levels of complexity on adversary decision makers in order to shape their behavior in predictable and beneficial ways, and provide an assessment of the utility of such a framework to serve as a basis for future complexity-based decision support tools.

Some key questions the Government wishes to investigate and answer are:

1. What is a sufficient set of information required for reasoning about the adversary decision flow? What are the required sets of attributes, linkages, dependencies, and probabilities to provide a sufficiently rich scenario to apply and evaluate complexity as a quantitative tool?

2. How should the Blue action space and effects be represented and modeled? What fidelity of the action space is required to support assessment against the Red adversary decision flow?

3. What principled modeling construct can effectively capture the complexity attributes, adversary decision state-space, Blue action space, and associated uncertainty and probabilities of effectiveness?

4. How can such a decision model and resulting calculus be used to reason over the space of options and develop complexity measures to enable the prioritization and assessment of options as it relates to the imposition of complexity on the adversary?

To answer these questions, this effort seeks new and novel ideas in the development of an analytical framework to enable the reasoning, quantification, and ability to compare and contrast multi-domain courses of action through a lens of complexity. The Government expects that approaches to solutions will explore and leverage well-known modeling and reasoning techniques that draw upon mathematics, probability theory, complexity theory, decision theory, and other related disciplines. The Government anticipates the creation and validation of new decision constructs, with assessments across increasing fidelity scenarios and models, to assess and validate the efficacy of the approach. This BAA is not focused on developing a single operational system or tool. Instead, the focus is on identifying and validating new concepts with extensive analysis, both technically and operationally, which may lead to further operational tool development.

Technical Areas of Interest The focus of this work is the development of an analytical framework for the quantification of MD courses of action against models of the adversary decision flow. There are two main components under this research area: 1) defining Complexity Metrics to assess the impact of the MD courses of action and to provide insight into how sets of courses of action compare with each other and combine to shape the complexity imposed on the adversary, and 2) Modeling Complexity Imposition of MD Courses of Action and their resulting effects.

White papers and proposals must provide a plan that addresses both components. Together, they will provide a means for exercising different MD courses of action against the adversary model, modeling the complex interactions of the courses of action, and quantifying the impact of those c;l.,;/’.ourses of action within the space of developed complexity metrics. The end goal is to provide new insights into this approach of using complexity as a measure, and examine how it might be used in a fashion similar to existing measures of performance and effectiveness.

Complexity Metrics The purpose of establishing complexity metrics is to capture and quantify the underlying dynamics and impact of applying some MD courses of action against an adversary decision flow model as compared to others. The complexity metrics should succinctly capture the important behaviors as well as be intuitive enough for potential consumption by a decision maker. This component should explore a variety of metrics, including existing measures from related disciplines as a starting point. The result of the research from this component should enable the analysis and comparison of Blue courses of action with respect to their impact on the adversary. For example, a metric might be used to capture how well some courses of action affect the adaptability of the adversary, as the Government is interested in understanding to the impact to the range of adaptability in the context of complexity imposition. Review the attributes of imposition in Figure 1 and the corresponding Appendix 1 (Identifying the Complex Aspects of a System).

To underscore the point that the Government anticipates offerors will leverage useful methods and techniques from multiple disciplines, the Government notes here that Dr. Melanie Mitchell, a complex systems researcher, draws on concepts from areas such as dynamical systems theory, thermodynamics, information theory, and computation to illustrate several definitions of complexity[endnoteRef:2]. Although Mitchell acknowledges several challenges associated with not yet having a single science of complexity, she presents several examples and limitations of measures of complexity. Below are two examples: [2: Mitchell, M., 2011. Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press.]

Statistical complexity: Physicists Crutchfield and Young[endnoteRef:3] defined statistical complexity as a measure of the minimum amount of information about the past behavior of a system that is needed to optimally predict the statistical behavior of that system in the future. [3: Crutchfield, J. and Young, K., 1989. Inferring statistical complexity. Physical Review Letters, 63(2), pp.105-108.]

Degree of hierarchy: Herbert Simon[endnoteRef:4] proposed system complexity in terms of its degree of hierarchy. He suggested that the most important attributes of complex systems are hierarchy and near-decomposability. In hierarchically complex systems, near-decomposability refers to the fact that there are many more strong interactions within a subsystem than between subsystems. [4: Simon, H. (1962). The Architecture of Complexity. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 106(6), 467-482.]

Another pair of researchers, Deacon and Koutroufinis[endnoteRef:5], proposed dynamical depth as “a measure of the complexity of a system that is largely orthogonal to computational, information theoretic, or thermodynamic conceptions of structural complexity.” They consider dynamical depth to be “a separate dimension of system complexity that measures the degree to which it exhibits discrete levels of nonlinear dynamical organization in which successive levels are distinguished by local entropy reduction and constraint generation.” [5: Deacon, T. and Koutroufinis, S., 2014. Complexity and Dynamical Depth. Information, 5(3), pp.404-423.]

Modeling Complexity Imposition of MD Courses of Action The objective of this component is to develop the methods and techniques necessary for quantifying and analyzing complexity imposition. The impacts of such imposition are primarily achieved by forcing an adversary to consider a range of new decisions, hinder the adversary’s ability to readily make strategic moves, and achieve outcomes that contribute to Blue’s mission goals. This research is based on the hypothesis that strategic competition and multi-domain warfare create complex environments for an adversary’s decision makers, and sets conditions for U.S. forces to benefit from characteristics associated with complexity. The main question the Government wishes to address in this component is how do we fashion such intuitive traits into a more formal mathematical construct for quantification and analysis?

While the main focus of this BAA is on the investigation and definition of the underlying calculus and metrics needed to answer the question of how to quantify complexity imposed by MD courses of action, a means for validating the results is also required. Offerors should consider how their approach can be demonstrated to promote more intuitive understanding, but also to allow the government to explore and perform a full technical evaluation. The government AFRL technical team is considered well-versed in the problem and can work with developmental software and algorithms. Results can be reported in simple text or by plots using languages such as Python or computational frameworks such as MATLAB. The Government expects the extent of this component to include only what is necessary to communicate key results for understanding--anything more is beyond the scope and interests of this BAA.

Evaluation A Government led team will design and conduct three empirical performance evaluations throughout the life of the program. The quantification and analysis will be evaluated by the Government to ensure that the mathematics that are being developed are sound. The Government will provide offerors with the adversary model, various courses of action, and a scenario to construct the framework for quantification and analysis. The courses of action, scenario data, and model may be different during each evaluation event in order to provide a more well-rounded assessment. Offerors will run their simulations and return their results to the Government. Government subject matter experts (SMEs) will be available to evaluate these outputs.

For each evaluation event, the offerors should provide information about proposed metrics and a report on modeling complexity imposition with respect to such metrics. The offerors should be able to provide a means and rationale for ordering courses of action. The Marionette evaluations will be conducted during the first or second quarter of each fiscal year (FY22, FY23, FY24).

The SMEs will develop a rubric for assessing the results of the complexity model and metrics based on sound future force scenarios. They will act in the capacity of a white cell to adjudicate the results of the complexity measures. The SMEs will extrapolate current capabilities and align them with future force demand signals as well as adversary behaviors to evaluate realism and the art of the possible. The SMEs will also evaluate the usability of the metrics, provide guidance on the utility and importance of the proposed complexity metric, and determine the completeness of metrics to serve as a decision quality measure of performance and effectiveness.

Schedule The schedule (Figure 2) describes how this research will be executed over the course of the program. The Government team plans to hold quarterly reviews throughout the execution period of the Marionette program as well as participate in the annual Principal Investigator (PI) Meetings as part of the AFRL AC2 CTC portfolio of programs. PI meetings will serve as quarterly reviews for quarters in which they coincide. Sites of other quarterly reviews are to be determined. Offerors should assume that fifty percent of the reviews will be at their sites and the other half of the reviews will require travel. As required, the Government team will also support informal meetings and/or biweekly teleconferences with offerors to assess current status.

Figure 2: Marionette Schedule

Analytical Framework Development The offerors will be responsible for developing an analytical framework for the quantification of complexity MD courses of action impose against models of the given adversary decision flow. The AFRL Government team will provide the offerors with the MD scenario, a set of courses of action, and the adversary model. The adversary model will have a minimal level of fidelity that will allow the offerors to measure the complexity of MD courses of action. As described in the Evaluation section, the research conducted will be evaluated by the Government. The end of this research will result with a capstone demonstration that culminates all the research and development that occurred during this effort.

Figure 3: Analytical Framework Development

When assessing the Overall Scientific and Technical Merit, AFRL evaluators will carefully consider the proposed technical approach detailed in white papers and proposals submitted in response to this BAA. We will also carefully consider the Related Experience of all key personnel.

References Air Force, “Air Force Future Operating Concept”, September 2015. Accessed on 18 March 2020 at https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/images/airpower/AFFOC.pdf Rickles, Dean, Penelope Hawe, Alan Shiell. “A Simple Guide to Chaos and Complexity.” Journal of Epidemiol Community Health. 60:933-937. 2007.

Murphy, Eric M. Complex Adaptive Systems and the Development of Force Structures for the United States Air Force. Drew Paper, no. 18. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, Air Force Research Institute, 2014.

Meadows, Donella. “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System.” The Sustainability Institute. 1999.

Engstrom, Jeffery, “Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare”. RR-1705, 2019.

Rickles, Dean, Penelope Hawe, Alan Shiell. “A Simple Guide to Chaos and Complexity.” Journal of Epidemiol Community Health. 60:933-937. 2007

IMPORTANT NOTES REGARDING:

FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH. It is DoD policy that the publication of products of fundamental research will remain unrestricted to the maximum extent possible. National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 189 defines fundamental research as follows:

‘Fundamental research’ means basic and applied research in science and engineering, the results of which ordinarily are published and shared broadly within the scientific community, as distinguished from proprietary research and from industrial development, design, production, and product utilization, the results of which ordinarily are restricted for proprietary or national security reasons.

As of the date of publication of this BAA, the Government cannot identify whether work proposed under this BAA may be considered fundamental research and may award both fundamental and non-fundamental research. Proposers should indicate in their proposal whether they believe the scope of the research included in their proposal is fundamental or not. While proposers should clearly explain the intended results of their research, the Government shall have sole discretion to select award instrument type and to negotiate all instrument terms and conditions with selectees. Appropriate clauses will be included in resultant awards for non-fundamental research to prescribe publication requirements and other restrictions, as appropriate.

For certain research projects, it may be possible that although the research being performed by the awardee is restricted research, a sub-awardee may be conducting fundamental research. In those cases, it is the awardee’s responsibility to explain in their proposal why its sub-awardee’s effort is fundamental research.

CLOUD COMPUTING. In accordance with DFARS Clause 252.239-7010, if the development proposed requires storage of Government, or Government-related data on the cloud, offerors need to ensure that the cloud service provider proposed has been granted Provisional Authorization by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) at the level appropriate to the requirement.

II. AWARD INFORMATION:

1. FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $9,900,000. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows:

FY21 - $600,000

FY22 - $3,300,000

FY23 - $3,000,000

FY24 - $3,000,000

a. Individual awards will not normally exceed 24 months with dollar values normally ranging from $500,000 to $1,000,000. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount of $9,900,000.

b. The Government reserves the right to select all, part, or none of the proposals received, subject to the availability of funds. All potential Offerors should be aware that due to unanticipated budget fluctuations, funding in any or all areas may change with little or no notice.

2. FORM. Awards of efforts as a result of this announcement will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed.

3. BAA TYPE: This is a two-step open broad agency announcement. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation.

As STEP ONE – The Government is only soliciting white papers at this time. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. See Section VI of this announcement for further details regarding the proposal.

III. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION:

1. ELIGIBILITY: All qualified offerors who meet the requirements of this BAA may apply.

2. FOREIGN PARTICIPATION/ACCESS:

a. This BAA is closed to foreign participation. This includes both foreign ownership and foreign nationals as employees or subcontractors.

b. Exceptions.

1. Fundamental Research. If the work to be performed is unclassified, fundamental research, this must be clearly identified in the white paper and/or proposal. See Part II, Section I for more details regarding Fundamental Research. Offerors should still identify any performance by foreign nationals at any level (prime contractor or subcontractor) in their proposals. Please specify the nationals’ country of origin, the type of visa or work permit under which they are performing and an explanation of their anticipated level of involvement. You may be asked to provide additional information during negotiations in order to verify the foreign citizen’s eligibility to participate on any contract or assistance agreement issued as a result of this announcement

2. Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence (FOCI) companies who have mitigation plans/paperwork in place. Proof of approved mitigation documentation must be provided to the contracting office focal point, Amber Buckley, Contracting Officer, telephone (315) 330-3605, or e-mail Amber.Buckley@us.af.mil prior to submitting a white paper and/or a proposal. For information on FOCI mitigation, contact the Defense Security Service. Additional details can be found at: https://www.dss.mil/ma/ctp/isia/bams/foci/foci_mitigation/

3. Foreign Nationals as Employees or Subcontractors. Applicable to any effort not considered Fundamental Research. Offerors are responsible for ensuring that all employees and/or subcontractors who will work on a resulting contract are eligible to do so. Any employee who is not a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident will be restricted from working on any resultant contract unless prior approval of the Department of State or the Department of Commerce is obtained via a technical assistance agreement or an export license. Violations of these regulations can result in criminal or civil penalties.

c. Information Regarding Non-US Citizens Assigned to this Project

1. Contractor employees requiring access to USAF bases, AFRL facilities, and/or access to U.S. Government Information Technology (IT) networks in connection with the work on contracts, assistance instruments or other transactions awarded under this BAA must be U.S. citizens. For the purpose of base and network access, possession of a permanent resident card ("Green Card") does not equate to U.S. citizenship. This requirement does not apply to foreign nationals approved by the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. State Department under international personnel exchange agreements with foreign governments. It also does not apply to dual citizens who possess US citizenship, to include Naturalized citizens. Any waivers to this requirement must be granted in writing by the Contracting Officer prior to providing access. Specific format for waiver request will be provided upon request to the Contracting Officer. The above requirements are in addition to any other contract requirements related to obtaining a Common Access Card (CAC).

2. For the purposes of Paragraph 1, it an IT network/system does not require AFRL to endorse a contractor's application to said network/system in order to gain access, the organization operating the IT network/system is responsible for controlling access to its system. If an IT network/system requires a U.S. Government sponsor to endorse the application in order for access to the IT network/system, AFRL will only endorse the following types of applications, consistent with the requirements above:

a) Contractor employees who are U.S. citizens performing work under contracts, assistance instruments or other transactions awarded under this BAA.

b) Contractor employees who are non-U.S. citizens and who have been granted a waiver.

Any additional access restrictions established by the IT network/system owner apply.

3. FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTERS AND GOVERNMENT ENTITIES: Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and Government entities (e.g., Government/National laboratories, military educational institutions, etc.) are subject to applicable direct competition limitations and cannot propose to this BAA in any capacity unless they meet the following conditions:

1. FFRDCs: FFRDCs must clearly demonstrate that the proposed work is not otherwise available from the private sector; and FFRDCs must provide a letter on official letterhead from their sponsoring organization citing the specific authority establishing their eligibility to propose to Government solicitations and compete with industry, and their compliance with the associated FFRDC sponsor agreement’s terms and conditions. This information is required for FFRDCs proposing to be prime contractors or sub-awardees.

1. Government Entities: Government entities must clearly demonstrate that the work is not otherwise available from the private sector and provide written documentation citing the specific statutory authority and contractual authority, if relevant, establishing their ability to propose to Government solicitations. While 10 U.S.C.§ 2539b may be the appropriate statutory starting point for some entities, specific supporting regulatory guidance, together with evidence of agency approval, will still be required to fully establish eligibility.

FFRDC and Government entity eligibility will be determined on a case-by-case basis; however, the burden to prove eligibility for all team members rests solely with the proposer.

Government agencies interested in performing work related to this announcement should contact the Technical Point of Contact (TPOC). If resulting discussions reveal a mutual interest, cooperation may be pursued via other vehicles.

4.ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: In accordance with FAR 9.5, offerors are required to identify and disclose all facts relevant to potential OCIs involving the offerors organization and any proposed team member (subawardee, consultant). Under this Section, the offeror is responsible for providing this disclosure with each proposal submitted to the solicitation. The disclosure must include the offerors, and as applicable, proposed team member’s OCI mitigation plan. The OCI mitigation plan must include a description of the actions the offeror has taken, or intends to take, to prevent the existence of conflicting roles that might bias the offerors judgment and to prevent the offeror from having unfair competitive advantage. The OCI mitigation plan will specifically discuss the disclosed OCI in the context of each of the OCI limitations outlined in FAR 9.505-1 through FAR 9.505-4.

a. Agency Supplemental OCI Policy: In addition, AFRL has a supplemental OCI policy that prohibits contractors/performers from concurrently providing Scientific Engineering Technical Assistance (SETA), Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS) or similar support services and being a technical performer. Therefore, as part of the FAR 9.5 disclosure requirement above, an offeror must affirm whether the offeror or any proposed team member (subawardee, consultant) is providing SETA, A&AS, or similar support to any AFRL office(s) under: (a) a current award or subaward; or (b) a past award or subaward that ended within one calendar year prior to the proposal’s submission date. If SETA, A&AS, or similar support is being or was provided to any AFRL office(s), the proposal must include:

. The name of the AFRL office receiving the support;

. The prime contract number;

. Identification of proposed team member (subawardee, consultant) providing the support; and . An OCI mitigation plan in accordance with FAR 9.5.

b. Government Procedures: In accordance with FAR 9.503, 9.504 and 9.506, the Government will evaluate OCI mitigation plans to avoid, neutralize or mitigate potential OCI issues before award and to determine whether it is in the Government’s interest to grant a waiver. The Government will only evaluate OCI mitigation plans for proposals that are determined selectable under the solicitation evaluation criteria and funding availability. The Government may require proposers to provide additional information to assist the Government in evaluating the offerors OCI mitigation plan. If the Government determines that an offeror failed to fully disclose an OCI; or failed to provide the affirmation of AFRL support as described above; or failed to reasonably provide additional information requested by the Government to assist in evaluating the proposer’s OCI mitigation plan, the Government may reject the proposal and withdraw it from consideration for award.

IV. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION:

All responses to this announcement must be addressed to the Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) listed in SECTION VII. DO NOT send white papers to the Contracting Officer.

1. SUBMISSION DATES AND TIMES:

It is recommended that white papers be received by 4 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on the following dates to maximize the possibility of award:

FY 21 by 16 APR 2021 FY 22 by 30 SEP 2021

All potential Offerors are requested to wait to submit white papers for future fiscal years (FYs) until the BAA announcement is updated with specific dates. The BAA will be amended to include new and updated in-scope technology requirements in FYs 23-25.

White papers will be accepted until 4 PM EST on 30 Sep 2024, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. This BAA will close on 30 Sep 2024.

All offerors submitting white papers will receive notification of their evaluation results within 45 days of submission. Offerors should email the TPOC and the Contracting Officer listed in Section VII, for status of their white paper(s) after 45 days, if no such correspondence has been received.

2. CONTENT AND FORMAT: Offerors are required to submit a 3 to 5 page white paper, in the form of a PDF file, summarizing their proposed approach/solution. Any pages in excess of 5 will be removed and not considered in the white paper evaluation.The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest to the Government.

The white paper will be formatted as follows:

a. Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Estimated Cost, Name/Address of Company, Technical and Contracting Points of Contact (phone and email) (this section is NOT included in the page count);

b. Section B: Task Objective; and

c. Section C: Technical Summary and Proposed Deliverables.

All white papers shall be double spaced with a font no smaller than 12 point. Please note that less than 12 point font is acceptable for graphics and illustrations (as in labels and short descriptions) as long as it is readable when printed out on standard 8x11 paper. In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code, their unique entity identifier and electronic funds transfer (EFT) indicator (if applicable), an e-mail address and reference BAA FA8750- 21-S-7005 with their submission.

Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. If the offeror wishes to restrict its white papers, they must be marked with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a) and (b).

3. HANDLING AND MAILING INSTRUCTIONS:

a. CLASSIFICATION GUIDANCE. All Proposers should review the NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL SECURITY PROGRAM OPERATING MANUAL (NISPOM), 32 CFR Part 117, as it provides baseline standards for the protection of classified information and prescribes the requirements concerning Contractor Developed Information under paragraph §117-13.

Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) Site for the NISPOM is: http://www.dcsa.mil/.

In the event of a possible or actual compromise of classified information in the submission of your white paper or proposal, immediately but no later than 24 hours, bring this to the attention of your cognizant security authority and AFRL Rome Research Site Information Protection Office (IPO):

Information Protection Office (contact only if a security compromise has occurred)

b. CLASSIFIED SUBMISSIONS. AFRL/RISB will accept classified responses to this BAA when the classification is mandated by classification guidance provided by an Original Classification Authority of the U.S. Government, or when the offeror believes the work, if successful, would merit classification.

Select one: Security classification guidance in the form of a DD Form 254 (DoD Contract Security Classification Specification) will not be provided at this time since AFRL is soliciting ideas only.

Offerors that intend to include classified information or data in their white paper submission or who are unsure about the appropriate classification of their white papers should contact the technical point of contact listed in Section VII for guidance and direction in advance of preparation.

c. MAILING INSTRUCTIONS.

Email Unclassified electronic submission to the TPOC identified in Section VII. Encrypt or password-protect all proprietary information prior to sending. Offerors are responsible to confirm receipt with the TPOC. AFRL is not responsible for undelivered documents. If electronic submission is used, only one copy of the documentation is required.

Questions can be directed to the TPOC listed in Section VII.

4. OTHER SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS/CONSIDERATIONS:

a. COST SHARING OR MATCHING: Cost sharing is not a requirement. Cost sharing may be proposed and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Cost share will not be a factor in selection for award.

b. SYSTEM FOR AWARD MANAGEMENT (SAM). Offerors must be registered in the SAM database to receive a contract award, and remain registered during performance and through final payment of any contract or agreement. Processing time for registration in SAM, which normally takes forty-eight hours, should be taken into consideration when registering. Offerors who are not already registered should consider applying for registration before submitting a proposal. The provision at FAR 52.204-7, System for Award Management (Oct 2018) applies.

c. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND FIRST-TIER SUBCONTRACT/ SUBRECIPIENT AWARDS: Any contract award resulting from this announcement may contain the clause at FAR 52.204-10 - Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards (Jun 2020. Any grant or agreement award resulting from this announcement may contain the award term set forth in 2 CFR, Appendix A to Part 25 which can be viewed at: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CFR-2012-title2-vol1/CFR-2012-title2-vol1-part25-appA.

d. ALLOWABLE CHARGES: The cost of preparing white papers/proposals in response to this announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract, but may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost specified in FAR 31.205-18. Incurring pre-award costs for ASSISTANCE INSTRUMENTS ONLY are regulated by 2 CFR part 200.458, Pre-Award Costs.

e. GOVERNMENT APPROVED ACCOUNTING SYSTEM: An offeror must have a government approved accounting system prior to award of a cost-reimbursement contract per limitations set forth in FAR 16.301-3(a) to ensure the system is adequate for determining costs applicable to the contract. The acceptability of an accounting system is determined based upon an audit performed by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). IMPORTANT: If you do not have a DCAA approved accounting system access the following link for instructions: https://sam.gov/opp/e628c811fafe041accdddf55fb8539bf/view?keywords=AFRL-BAA-Guide&sort=-relevance&index=&is_active=true&page=1

f. HUMAN USE: All research involving human subjects, to include the use of human biological specimens and human data, selected for funding must comply with Federal regulations for human subject protection. Further, research involving human subjects that is conducted or supported by the DoD must comply with 32 CFR 219, “Protection of Human Subjects” found at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_07/32cfr219_07.html, and DoD Instruction 3216.02, “Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research” found at: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/321602p.pdf.

1. Institutions awarded funding for research involving human subjects must provide documentation of a current Assurance of Compliance with Federal regulations for human subject protection, for example a Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Research Protection Federal Wide Assurance found at: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp.

2. All institutions engaged in human subject research, to include subcontractors, must have a valid assurance. In addition, personnel involved in human subject research must document the completion of appropriate training for the protection of human subjects.

3. For all research that will involve human subjects in the first year or phase of the project, the institution must submit evidence of a plan for review by an institutional review board (IRB) as part of the proposal. The IRB conducting the review must be the IRB identified on the institution’s Assurance of Compliance. The protocol, separate from the proposal, must include a detailed description of the research plan, study population, risks and benefits of study participation, recruitment and consent process, data collection, and data analysis. The designated IRB should be consulted for guidance on writing the protocol. The informed consent document must comply with 32 CFR 219.116. A valid Assurance of Compliance and evidence of appropriate training by all investigators should accompany the protocol for review by the IRB.

4. In addition to a local IRB approval, an AFRL-level human subject regulatory review and approval is required for all research conducted or supported by the DoD. The Air Force office responsible for managing the award can provide guidance and information about the AFRL-level review process. Confirmation of a current Assurance of Compliance and appropriate human subjects protection training is required before AFRL-level approval can be issued.

5. The time required to complete the IRB review/approval process will vary depending on the complexity of the research and/or the level of risk to study participants; ample time should be allotted to complete the approval process. The IRB approval process can last between 1 to 3 months, followed by a DoD review that could last 3 to 6 months. No funding may be used toward human subject research until all approvals are granted. Therefore, in their cost proposals offerors should separate human use into a separate option.

g) SUPPLIER PERFORMANCE RISK SYSTEM (SPRS). Offerors should have a BASIC NIST SP 800 171 DoD Assessment in the SPRS (https://www.sprs.csd.disa.mil/). Basic assessment is to be conducted by the offeror.

V. APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION:

1. CRITERIA: The following criteria, which are listed in descending order of importance and will be used to determine whether white papers and proposals submitted are consistent with the intent of this BAA and of interest to the Government:

a. Overall Scientific and Technical Merit -- The soundness of approach for the development and/or enhancement of the proposed technology,

b. Related Experience - The extent to which the offeror demonstrates relevant technology and domain knowledge,

c. Openness, Maturity and Assurance of Solution - The extent to which existing capabilities and standards are leveraged and the relative maturity of the proposed technology, and

d. Reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and fees (if any).

No further evaluation criteria will be used to select white papers for proposal invitation. Proposals will be evaluated IAW this evaluation criteria only and categorized/selected for award as detailed in Section V.2.b.2. White papers and proposals submitted will be evaluated as they are received.

2. REVIEW AND SELECTION PROCESS:

1. Only Government employees on the BAA team will evaluate the white papers/proposals for selection. The Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate has contracted for various business and staff support services, some of which require contractors to obtain administrative access to proprietary information submitted by other contractors. Administrative access is defined as "handling or having physical control over information for the sole purpose of accomplishing the administrative functions specified in the administrative support contract, which do not require the review, reading, and comprehension of the content of the information on the part of non-technical professionals assigned to accomplish the specified administrative tasks." These contractors have signed general non-disclosure agreements and organizational conflict of interest statements. The required administrative access will be granted to non-technical professionals. Examples of the administrative tasks performed include: a. Assembling and organizing information for R&D case files; b. Accessing library files for use by government personnel; and c. Handling and administration of proposals, contracts, contract funding and queries. Any objection to administrative access must be in writing to the Contracting Officer and shall include a detailed statement of the basis for the objection.

1. WHITE PAPER/PROPOSAL REVIEW PROCESS:

1. FIRST STEP – White Paper Reviews: The Government will review White Papers to identify those with the greatest potential to meet the Air Force’s needs based on the criteria above. If funding is available for an identified white paper, AFRL/RI will request a formal technical and cost proposal from the Offeror.