Maintain the North Atlantic Right Whale Sightings Database Services

The Government intends to negotiate a contract with the University of Rhode Island on a sole source basis for the Maintenance of the North Atlantic Right Whale Sightings Database Services.  This procurement requires a very particular set of skills, and extensive knowledge and expertise of the North Atlantic Right Whale Sightings Database.  The Contractor must manage and maintain all aspects of the North Atlantic Right Whale Sightings Database, which includes receiving, auditing, formatting, entering, and archiving data from all bona fide scientific contributors in a timely manner; conducting full quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) processing developed for the North Atlantic Right Whale Sightings Database on every submission, making any necessary corrections, and providing detailed feedback to the contributor; cross-referencing the North Atlantic Right Whale Sightings Database with the ID Catalog database maintained and archived at New England Aquarium to ensure maximum utility of both; and providing data and data products to NMFS, NEFSC and other requesting investigators and agencies.   The period of performance will be a base period of one (1) year with four (4) one (1) year option periods.  A Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition will be posted at a later date.

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals; however, all submittals received by the due date set forth in this notice will be considered by the Government.  A determination by the Government not to compete this requirement is based on upon responses to this notice within the discretion of the Government.