RTAC JandA for Other than Full and Open Competition.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION (J&A)

TO: Karl Fickenscher, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator (SDAA)

FROM: Tara Hill, Contracting Officer’s Representative

SUBJECT: Justification and Approval for Other than Full and Open Competition (J&A) for Contract #7200AA18C00057

1. This document sets forth the facts and rationale justifying the use of other than full and open competition, in accordance with AIDAR 706.3:

This document was prepared by the Research Division within the USAID’s Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI)’s Innovation, Technology, and Research (ITR) Hub.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This is a request to approve a cost extension in the amount of $4.0 million and time extension of

14.5 months for continued work under the Research Technical Assistance Center (RTAC) contract, Contract #7200AA18C00057. The current period of performance for the RTAC contract is: 07/11/2018 - 07/10/2023. Under this action, NORC, at the University of Chicago (the lead contractor of RTAC) will support USAID for an additional 14.5 months with the provision and development of critical research analyses, technical studies, scientific research technical assistance and translation, and other research services, consistent with the original RTAC scope of work and original RTAC request for proposal (RFP). The revised period of performance would become: 07/11/2018 - 09/30/2024.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including an estimated value:

The RTAC Contract, managed by NORC, at the University of Chicago, brings together a consortium of over 1000 higher-education based researchers that span the geographic and technical areas in which USAID works. The researchers under this consortia are available, on demand, to conduct time-sensitive research and learning activities for key USAID priorities.

Illustrative example projects that RTAC research teams have worked on/are currently working on for USAID include: Long-term forecasting of COVID-related impacts on food security, Understanding the Impact of Digital Surveillance on USAID, Climate Change Foresight Research, and Research on Minority Serving Institution Engagement with USAID.

An additional 14.5 months of services under RTAC are required in order to ensure completion of critical research activities and to ensure that the Innovation, Technology, and Research Division has the ability to continue to offer access to this critical pool of researchers to USAID missions, bureaus, and operating units (M/B/IOs) to meet several recent USAID or administration priority areas (including climate, COVID-19 recovery and planning, and cyber security, to name a few).

The 14.5 month extension will allow completion of these research activities and will carry the award through the end of fiscal year 2023 (September 30, 2024). ITR/R currently plans to compete, start, and award a new mechanism to provide critical research services to USAID effective October 1, 2024, by such time as additional funds are anticipated to be available in DDI/ITR/R, given current funding levels and projections, to absorb the costs of a new award start-up.

The anticipated value of the services envisioned during the 14.5 month costed extension is $4.0 million, inclusive of approximately $1.25M of core expenses (to come from DDI/ITR/R’s budget), continuing research and research translation support, and funds to support emergent time-sensitive research needs.

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

This action is requested under the authority of AIDAR 706.302-70 Impairment of foreign aid programs (b)(3)(i) which states “An award for which the Assistant Administrator responsible for the project or program makes a formal written Determination and Findings (D&F), that compliance with full and open competition procedures would impair foreign assistance objectives, and would be inconsistent with the fulfillment of the foreign assistance program.” No other authority provided under FAR 6.302 or AIDAR 706.302 is suitable.

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition that requires use of the authority cited:

The RTAC Contract was awarded to NORC, at the University of Chicago following a full and open competition that resulted in the initial contract award in July 2018. Since the Award of the original contract, NORC, at the University of Chicago has partnered with USAID to recruit, enroll, and maintain a “Research Partner Network” of over 1000 scientific and technical experts/researchers from universities all over the globe, spanning the geographic and technical breadth of areas in which USAID works. Exceeding USAID’s expectations, NORC has spent much of the last four years building this Network (averaging an aggressive (approximate) 250 new additions yearly) and they are now uniquely positioned to “maintain an essential engineering, research or development capability to be provided by an educational” by virtue of the fact that they currently maintain this expansive and open network of scientific experts who are available to respond to USAID research needs immediately as they are identified. The researchers under the RTAC Research Partner Network are primarily sourced and on stand-by to competitively respond to solicitations from USAID for completion of critical and time sensitive “theoretical analyses, exploratory studies or experiments in any field of science or technology.”

This capability is evidenced by the wide array of research analyses and projects higher education-affiliated researchers in the RTAC Partner Network have conducted for USAID over the past four years (over two dozen projects and hundreds of individual deliverables spanning global health, education, resilience, climate, digital, food security, and more).

In addition, there are multiple new activities that the Agency, and/or our partners, would like to begin in the coming weeks that would not be able to be completed by the current end date (hence we have not agreed to take them on yet) but that could be agreed-to and completed by September 30, 2024. Without the approval of the extension, these activities will not be completed and/or will not even be able to start which represents a significant impairment to DDI’s ability to conduct our foreign affairs activities and responsibilities-- which mandate that we provide technical assistance and research services to the field.

Select (not exhaustive list) examples include:

● USAID/DDI/T - The Technology Hub has a current buy-in focused on research around digital surveillance of USAID employees in three overseas Missions and DC. There have been delays due to extensive coordination needed with CIO and the participating Missions given the required security measures needed to ensure the research proceeds with all appropriate approvals and protocols in place. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, all pieces must be in place for work to actively begin, and therefore the project is just getting kicked off. As a result, it is not currently expected to be completed on time for the current project end date. Lack of receipt of the data from this activity will significantly impact ITR/T’s ability to communicate information about key digital surveillance research and issues to our partner missions which is a key part of T’s foreign aid objective.

● USAID/PPL - The Bureau has additional funds from a current research buy-in on climate foresight research. The Bureau wants to use the remaining funding (approximately $250,000) for a follow-on research foresight activity to conduct research about first and second order global development and humanitarian impacts of an economic recession in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Without the approval of the extension, the additional research work will have insufficient time to be completed, severely impacting PPL’s ability to complete their foreign affairs objectives.

● USAID/Department of State Partnership - The U.S. Department of State just approached USAID/DDI and expressed interest in leveraging the RTAC Research Network to complete critical research work on global infrastructure spending. This inter-Agency endeavor includes Digital assets (and Administration priority) as one of the key pillars of exploration. The estimated timeline for the project is January 2023-December 2023 with an estimated budget of $200,000-$300,000. Without the extension and ceiling increase, DDI will not be able to complete this foreign affair objective at all.

In addition, ITR/R (and RTAC) have had to decline pursuing a significant number of new research projects (aimed at assisting in completion of a wide range of foreign affairs objectives) from various missions, bureaus, and operating units due to insufficient ceiling or remaining time on the current period of performance.

Select (not exhaustive list) examples include:

○ Meta-Evaluation of Prize Competitions for $360,000

○ Literature Review and Key Informant Interviews for the Land and Resource

Governance Division to support project design for $400,000

○ Meta-evaluation of Community-Based Disaster Risk Mitigation (CBDRM) projects in key countries.

○ Evaluation of BHA-funded Early Warning Systems (EWS) in different countries.

○ Post-evaluation of FAO’s Conservation Agriculture project that took place in

Indonesia and East Timor in 2013-2019.

It is anticipated that most of these activities could begin with the approved extension. Given the lack of a viable alternative path to program these research activities, without the extensions approval, DDI will have to decline all of them and they will not be able to proceed. The Research Division’s primary objective and Mission is to support the Agency in the generation, use, and translation of research and research evidence. Without the ability to access an external mechanism to provide these services to our Agency, the Research Division faces a significant impairment in our ability to complete our foreign affairs objectives, not only for our Division, but also for the entire Agency, who regularly relies on these services to complete their development work. Without this extension, USAID’s ability to implement its foreign assistance objectives would be impaired.

The principal reason for the extension to NORC contract is to avoid impairment of the foreign assistance by ensuring that there is no disruption in the availability of quality research services during the time it takes to make a new contract award and transition to the follow-on. The procurement planning process is underway and we do not anticipate being able to award a brand new set of programs until FY 2024, therefore extension of this award is necessary. NORC is DDI/ITR’s only research mechanism for supporting short-term/time sensitive research questions and the break in this provision of services would result in USAID unable to make informed decisions from the research.

Regarding participation of small, local entities, it should be noted that while the Prime contract holder (NORC, at the University of Chicago) is a U.S. university, 50% of the researchers in the Research Partner Network are affiliated/come from local universities in developing countries.

6. Description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was publicized as required by

FAR 5.2 [AIDAR 705.2].

Per AIDAR 705.202(b), advance notice is not appropriate or reasonable and offers were not solicited as this is an action proposing an extension of an existing contract.

DDI/ITR began the HESN 3.0 design, planning, and consultation process for a new procurement around late 2021 with the aim there would be an adequate budget to fund a new solicitation using FY22 funds. FY22 toplines were just finalized and Op Plan guidance was sent and the budget will not be sufficient to enable a new competition in FY22. This cost and time extension to RTAC will enable USAID to continue to offer critical research services until such time as a subsequent competition/funding becomes available.

This J&A of the RTAC contract to September 30, 2024, if approved, will be published in accordance with posting requirements.

7. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

A review of historical costs (through analysis of annual contract budgets from 2018-2022) has led to a determination that the projected costs of the extension (if approved) will be fair and reasonable. Further, given this would be the sixth year of the contract, the costs to extend the contract would be significantly lower for the government than the costs of soliciting and standing up a brand new contract given extensive start-up costs required to stand up and create a Network of the size and scope of the RTAC network. The Contracting Officer, in certifying this J&A, determines that anticipated cost to the government will be determined to be fair and reasonable.

8. Description of the market research conducted, and the results or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted:

A very comprehensive market research process was conducted in 2017 preceding the initial RTAC contract. Hundreds of consultations, two public Requests for Information (RFIs) and a higher-education focused Industry Day were all conducted to help assess the market’s capability and interest in performing this work.

A “Sources Sought” notice was published specifically soliciting interest in the proposed RFA for RTAC. The SSN was open for responses until August 25, 2017. USAID received 35 responses from vendors with the following breakout:

● 14 University or educational institutions (2 international)

● 6 Not-for-profit or non-profit research institutions (3 associated with universities)

● 4 Woman-Owned small businesses

● 4 Large businesses

● 3 Small businesses

● 2 Historically black colleges or universities

● 1 SDB Qualified under the 8(a) Program

● 1 Service-disabled VO small business

After careful review of the information received from the two RFIs as well as the extensive internal consultations conducted by the USAID planning team, it was determined in partnership with our OAA team that the most appropriate contracting approach for the RTAC contract would be full and open competition. The decision to proceed with full and open competition was aimed at: 1) maximizing the chances that the Government would receive the best Offer for the most competitive price for this critical procurement and 2) needing to ensure that the appropriate level of U.S., MSI, and LMIC higher education, science, research, and capacity development connections and skills existed within the Prime to guarantee successful completion of a scope as large and complex (geographically and technically) as the RTAC Award.

Market research for a new solicitation is well under way but was put on pause this summer when it became apparent that insufficient funds would exist for a brand new procurement to meet this need in 2022/3. Accordingly, market research and consultations will resume closer to the time of a hoped-for new solicitation (now targeted for 2023/2024).

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

In addition to the research remaining to be completed under the existing RTAC contract, another driver of this request to extend the existing mechanism for USAID is lack of sufficient budget within ITR/R to solicit and procure a brand new mechanism in FY2022.

From FY14-FY2020, ITR/R (or its predecessor organization in the Global Development Lab), consistently received an annual appropriation of at least $25 million for higher education based programming. However, starting with FY2021 and carrying forward into FY2022, the appropriation to ITR/R has been reduced to $17.5M. This new, lower, value has caused ITR/R to slow down our already begun HESN 3.0 consultation, market research, and planning processes considerably as we do not anticipate being able to award a brand new set of programs until September 2024, when sufficient budget is anticipated to be available to award a new program, given current funding levels and receding mortgages in other programs.

However, Agency research needs continue to be presented to ITR/R and ITR/R is seeking a way to respond to them in a cost efficient and practical manner. By using $1.25M of ITR/R’s FY2022 higher education allocation of funds to extend RTAC through September 30, 2024, ITR/R can maintain a mechanism to not only complete existing research work in RTAC, but also ensure continuation of critical foreign aid research work between the period of July 2023 and September 2024. If the extension is not approved, DDI will not have any available vehicle for completing these research activities, thereby inhibiting our ability to fulfill our foreign aid objective of supporting missions and bureaus to increase the use of science and research to improve development outcomes.

10. Sources, if any, that expressed an interest, in writing, in the acquisition:

None. Advance notice is not appropriate or reasonable for this contract.

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

Assuming DDI/ITR/R’s new annual appropriation of $17.5M holds and continues to be made available to ITR/R and the critical research activities are completed, ITR/R would plan to compete future requirements to meet Agency research needs through full and open competition or through a targeted solicitation to our higher education partners with a hoped-for award date of1

September 2024.

1 Funding for this programming is historically supported under the higher education directive so this might influence the vendors ultimately determined to be eligible for any subsequent solicitations.