PIA BRICC Statement of Work (SOW) 2025.pdf

AFRL/AFOSR Partnership Intermediary Agreement

1.0 Objective

The objective of this Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) is to support the Department of the Air Force's (DAF) basic research enterprise and research laboratory by accelerating the transition of scientific discoveries, building national security innovation ecosystems, strengthening the STEM workforce pipeline, and aligning partnerships to mission priorities. The Intermediary shall operate as a strategic facilitator and neutral convener capable of executing complex partnership functions across academic, industry, and government interfaces. The program is expected to provide integrated programmatic and technical support that increases transition and transfer success rates, drives return on investment from 6.1 research, and advances the capabilities of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and broader DoD S&T partnerships and priorities.

2.0 Capability Areas

This section outlines primary capability areas under which all work must be performed.

These areas reflect strategic functions necessary to advance the AFOSR and AFRL’s technology transition and transfer, ecosystem engagement, and innovation integration goals. The Intermediary is expected to execute all activities in alignment with these domains and maintain integration across all functions to promote seamless collaboration.

2.1 Innovation Ecosystem Development

The Intermediary shall identify and map innovation ecosystems that intersect with AFOSR and AFRL’s scientific priorities and broader DoD modernization needs. The contractor will facilitate long-term, multidirectional collaboration among research labs, startups, mission-aligned academic centers and institutions, regional consortia, industry and nontraditional partners. Special emphasis will be placed on convening multi-institutional working groups, developing innovation environments (virtual and physical), and aligning with DAF’s top innovation priorities, nodes and networks.

The PI is required to:

- Conduct landscape analyses of basic and applied key research strengths and innovation clusters.

- Stand up innovation-focused working groups around key domains such to include quantum science, biotechnology, advanced materials, AI and other basic research added domains.

- Provide programmatic infrastructure to support integrated stakeholder engagement and long-term co-development activities.

- Establish operate and manage government-accessible, contractor-leased collaboration environments that functions as a strategic hub for stakeholder integration, innovation facilitation, and secure engagement.

- Collaboration spaces may include up to four contractor-leased facilities:

- Averaging at least 10,000 square feet, located in Arlington, VA

- Averaging at least 10,000 square feet, located in Chantilly, VA

- Averaging at least 10,000 square feet, located in Colorado Springs

These collaboration environments are to support long-term planning teams, workshops, technical reviews, industry and academic engagements, technical strategic planning, workforce development and stakeholder meetings.

The PI shall outfit the collaborative environment(s) with technology required to facilitate meaningful collaboration in person, remotely and virtually to include: hybrid, streaming, recording, and incorporating augmented & virtual reality and AI.

The PI will be responsible for managing the facilitating collaborative engagements within these environments to include:

- Facilitating, designing and structuring these collaborative engagements to ensure meaningful results.

- Providing both pre-, during and post-collaboration support to include, but not limited to: planning, agendas, badging, registration, managing attendees and presentations, facilitating discussions and breakout groups, distribution of materials, security, AV/tech support within each meeting room, hybrid and streaming support, recording, capturing and notetaking within each meeting and generating a post event report to include impacts and results for each event.

- Providing internet connectivity for staff and attendees, a snack bar or vending, hot desking options and furniture designed for flexible collaboration activities.

The PI will access external facilities for surge or short-term requests. These include external environments or facilities for collaborations that are larger in scale (200+ attendee) or are above secret classified level.

Each collaboration center should be available within 30 days of this CPO award.

2.2 Technology Transition & Commercialization Enablement

The Intermediary shall build and manage the transition pipeline from basic research outcomes to practical applications through coordinated support, strategic partner engagements, engagement with AFRL and DoD labs and commercialization resources.

The PI is required to:

- Provide dedicated. experienced technology transfer expertise to work with ORTAs, researchers, and external stakeholders.

- Maintain a running portfolio of technologies, organized by technical readiness, domain relevance, and strategic alignment.

- Track and report IP outcomes, including patent applications, awards, and licensing activity.

- Conduct transition-readiness and commercialization potential assessments using standardized criteria.

- Support invention disclosures, patent filing processes, and license agreements.

- Draft, review, and support administration of CRADAs, MOUs, MOAs, EPAs, ITAs, and CTAs in coordination with AFOSR and AFRL T2 offices.

- Develop transition strategies and pathways customized for basic research priorities within AFRL and DoD laboratories.

- Develop commercialization roadmaps and strategies customized for basic research assets and added AFRL TL levels.

- Create ROI case studies to demonstrate potential value to DAF and external investors.

- Identify and match AFOSR projects with non-traditional partners, including small businesses, incubators, SBIR/STTR responders, and VC-funded firms.

- Coordinate pitch days, demo events, and thematic tech showcases.

- Provide landscape analyses and competitor benchmarks to assist program officers and academic PIs in understanding the dual-use potential of their work.

- Survey public and private funding pathways relevant to early-stage research translation.

- Convene transition workshops, industry-academia DoD roundtables, and public-private forums to promote dual-use commercialization.

- Promote transition success stories through written presentations, online portal, newsletters, and recorded media.

- Create a dashboard for tracking transition milestones (e.g., IP filed, partnerships formed, licensing activity). The dashboard should complement integration into DAF tracking systems.

- Support early-stage prototype development and demonstration to validate transition potential. This includes coordination with AFRL Tech Directorates, university-affiliated design centers, or potential end-users for pilot deployments.

- Facilitate iterative prototyping, pilot testing, and design refinement to accelerate dual-use commercialization or DoD mission integration.

2.3 Workforce Development and STEM

The Intermediary shall design and implement programs that expand the DAF STEM pipeline while upskilling the current innovation workforce in support of science and technology (S&T) transition and transfer priorities.

The PI is required to:

- Develop innovation-aligned STEM curriculum, camps and internships for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate audiences.

- Establish partnerships with MSIs, tribal colleges, technical institutes, and research-intensive universities.

- Provide access to learning platforms, online courses, and credentialing opportunities for AI, biotech, quantum, and key DAF innovation priorities.

- Build career pathway programs that include mentorship, experiential learning, and early exposure to DoD challenges.

- Deliver educational workshops and bootcamps for researchers, POs, and transition stakeholders on IP, T2, and commercialization topics.

- Develop tools and content to aid in recruitment and development of both the future and existing DAF workforce.

- Support challenge-based education efforts, such as innovation sprints, prize competitions, and hackathons.

2.4 Strategic Engagement and Mission Integration

The Intermediary shall align research partnerships, innovation activities, and ecosystem initiatives with the evolving missions of the DAF and broader DoD enterprise. Emphasis shall be placed on long-term, trusted engagements across classified and unclassified domains.

The PI is required to:

- Facilitate secure, topic-specific working groups among federal, academic, and commercial stakeholders.

- Integrate innovation activities across AFOSR, AFRL, DARPA, NRO, ONR, NRL, OSD, NSF, USSF, and additional external agency portfolios.

- Support challenge-based models for targeted technology acceleration (e.g., grand challenges, prize competitions).

- Develop structured frameworks for interagency engagement, including strategic planning sessions and roadmapping efforts.

- Maintain updated databases of vetted partners and provide government with secure access to collaboration records.

- Build and strengthen national security innovation networks anchored to the collaboration environments, or other priority sites.

- Provide impact reports that link mission outcomes to engagement metrics and ecosystem ROI.

2.5 Analytics, Impact Assessment, and Knowledge Transfer

The Intermediary shall deliver robust, real-time insights into the effectiveness of technology transition, ecosystem growth, and stakeholder alignment using both standard and advanced analytic methods.

The PI is required to:

- Develop a customizable dashboards and data sets for tracking performance, IP metrics, funding leverage, and partner engagement.

- Conduct global benchmarking of research and market trends to inform DoD transition strategies.

- Produce predictive analytics models and technology readiness forecasting.

- Deploy LLMs, NLP tools, and data-mining algorithms to extract insights from commercial resources, research outputs and stakeholder interactions.

- Enable sandbox environments for tools testing, stakeholder piloting, and multi-party collaboration.

- Generate executive-level visualizations, briefs, and stakeholder intelligence products.

- Maintain a library of curated data on tech transition and transfer outcomes, stakeholder maps, and collaboration trends.

- Create customized impact reports for government leadership, including return-on-investment narratives and performance visualizations.

- Maintain and manage innovation data portals, dashboards and data sets for information collection of innovation & commercialization data from approved tools and sources, including but not limited to websites, ideation platforms, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools, subscriptions, DoD approved systems and 3rd party company search tools and databases. The intended users for these data portals dashboards, data sets and subscription access will be DoD personnel, the PI will need to provide subscription service to their personnel.

3.0 Period of Performance

The base period of performance shall be a (1) year from date of award with four (4) optional extension periods that may be exercised in accordance with government requirements and funding availability.

4.0 Place of Performance

The primary place of performance shall include the contractor’s leased collaboration facility located in:

- Arlington, VA – within a mile of AFOSR

The additional places of performance shall include the contractor’s leased collaboration facilities located in:

- Colorado Springs, CO

- Chantilly, VA

These locations are subject to AFOSR continued partnering activity and available funding.

Additional support may occur at government installations, academic partner locations, and remote sites as required and approved.

5.0 Security

The Partnership Intermediary (PI) shall establish, maintain, and execute a comprehensive Security Management Program in accordance with all applicable federal and DoD policies.

This includes DoD 5220.22-M (NISPOM), 32 CFR Part 117, and any applicable directives related to Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and classified material.

The PI is required to:

- Implement SOPs for personnel, physical, and communications security, aligned with DoDI 5200.01 Vol. 1–4.

- Integrate with AFRL’s and AFOSR’s OPSEC Plans and maintain up-to-date threat assessments for each facility.

- Enforce access control measures, including badging and attendance tracking for classified events.

- Ensure all staff complete DoD-mandated training on CUI handling, cybersecurity hygiene, and information protection protocols.

- Coordinate with government security personnel on event access, SCIF use, and incident response.

- Execute NDAs for all relevant personnel. This includes those working within the PIA, reporting to the board or stakeholders about the PIA or promoting PIA-related work. Copies of the NDAs must be provided to the government.

- Ensure that all personnel assigned to this agreement are U.S. citizens and cleared at appropriate levels for the projects to which they are assigned.

- Submit requests for Common Access Cards (CACs), visit authorizations, or clearance requirements as needed to support government projects.

- Provide incident reports within a timely matter for all security issues within the environment or with personnel.

- Ensure physical, data, and IT compliance across all locations.

6.0 Performance Measures

The PI shall track, report, and continuously improve program effectiveness using a structured performance framework aligned to all capability areas. Measures shall emphasize:

- Timeliness and quality of deliverables

- Stakeholder satisfaction and engagement reach

- Technology transition and commercialization outcomes

- Operational support for collaborations, team outcomes and events

- Cost control and financial transparency

- STEM and workforce development impact

Performance may be assessed through quantitative KPIs, narrative assessments, external stakeholder feedback, and government-led evaluations. Lessons learned and corrective action strategies shall be embedded in quarterly and annual reviews.

7.0 Deliverables

Deliverables shall be structured by capability area and governed by a recurring submission schedule:

Monthly Reports (submitted separately or combined by the following categories):

- Project(s) status Report

- Post-Event Collaboration and Impact Report

- Tech Transition and Transfer Activity Report to include detailed success stories

- Financial Report per project to include approved costs that were incurred to-date and projected costs

- IP and Innovation Metrics Dashboard

- Outreach and Communications Impact Report

- Workforce Engagement Report

- STEM Engagement Report

- Partnership Landscape and Engagement Report

- Agreements Engagement and Tracking Report

- Contractor- Acquired Property & GFE Inventory Report

- Classified Event Attendee Logs

- Security and Compliance Incident Log

- CRADA/MOU/License Execution Trackers

- Executive-Level Briefing Materials

Quarterly Reports (submitted separately or combined by the following categories):

- Overview of what was accomplished, identify any issues in meeting deliverables or tasks

- Integrated Capability Area Performance Report

- Transition & Commercialization Progress Brief

- Stakeholder Satisfaction and Engagement Reach Brief

- Technology Transition and Commercialization Outcomes

- Operational support for collaborations, team outcomes and events

- Comprehensive Financial Report with Cost control and financial transparency

- Stakeholder Engagement Map Update

- Risk & Issue Management Summary

- IP Lifecycle Summary

- Cross-Agency Collaboration Summary

- Provision of a secure FTP site or digital collaboration library for delivery of data, documents, and historical records in compliance with government auditing and archival requirements.

Annual Reports (submitted separately or combined by the following categories):

- Access to real-time program, project, and financial management tools to enable integrated oversight by government stakeholders, consistent with FAR 4.804 and DFARS 252.242-7005 for contractor recordkeeping and financial transparency.

- Comprehensive Impact Report

- Strategic Roadmap for Future-Year Planning

- Lessons Learned Digest

- Provide quantitative and qualitative analysis of what was accomplished

- Documented list of all deliverables for the year

Final Report is inclusive to all reporting and deliverables over the period of award. (Due 60 Days Post-Contract Closeout)

8.0 Key Personnel

The PI shall maintain qualified, mission-aligned leadership and technical expertise across all functional domains. The following positions are considered Key Personnel:

- Capability Leads for:

- Technology Transition & Commercialization

- STEM & Workforce Development

- Analytics & Reporting

-Environment and Events

- Partnership Management

- Partnering Project Lead

All proposed changes to Key Personnel shall be submitted to the Contracting Officer (CO) and PM for review and approval. Emergency changes must be documented and shared with the CO within five business days.

All managers and leads must possess demonstrated expertise in government partnership execution, DoD acquisition processes, and technology transfer principles relevant to basic and applied research.

Management of these key personnel to include Directors, Division Leads, Vice Presidents, Presidents, CEOs, CFOs and similar should be treated as indirect (overhead), not billed to the government, unless clearly justified and linked to specific tasks in the approved statement of work.

9.0 Reporting & Compliance

The PI shall establish a reporting and compliance infrastructure that enables:

- Timely, accurate, and data-rich reporting across all operational lines

- Transparency in financial, personnel, and partner activity

- Full compliance with 2 CFR 200, DFARS 252.204-7012, and PIA-specific guidelines for technology transfer

- Alignment with guidance in 15 U.S.C. § 3715, 10 U.S.C. § 4124 and related statutory authorities governing PIAs

Specific compliance expectations include:

- Secure submission of reports via government-approved platforms

- Maintenance of export control and CUI-compliant procedures

- Internal controls for tracking agreements, personnel actions, and invoicing

- Participation in audits and readiness reviews as directed by the Government

All reports must be delivered in formats conducive to both executive review and data aggregation, and shall be accessible for government use or oversight at any time.