Research and Studies for the Office of Net Assessment

Amendment / Modification

This document is Amendment 001 to the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) HQ0034-23-BAA-0001, dated April 24, 2024. It does not introduce new solicitations or RFPs, but rather provides an update to the existing BAA.

This amendment does not appear to modify specific sections of the original BAA but serves as an update to the announcement itself.

No changes to proposal submission deadlines or requirements are indicated by this amendment. The original BAA's submission dates remain in effect unless otherwise specified in future amendments.

Solicitation / RFP / RFQ

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is issued by Washington Headquarters Services, Acquisition Directorate (WHS/AD) on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA). It seeks proposals for research and studies related to independent net assessments of U.S. military capabilities and national potential in comparison with other countries, to identify emerging or future threats and opportunities. The BAA is open to all profit and non-profit businesses, as well as institutions of higher education. No formal Request for Proposal (RFP) or solicitation will be issued separately.

The OSD/NA is interested in proposals addressing the following areas of interest:

• Future Naval Warfare: Studying competition on and under the sea, including anti-ship systems and undersea warfare.

• Proliferated World: Exploring security environments with nuclear proliferation and its effects on U.S. national security policy and military missions.

• Future Space Warfare: Analyzing military competition in space, including the role of commercial space assets.

• Sustaining Current Areas of U.S. Advantage: Diagnosing areas where the U.S. has or could develop a competitive advantage.

• History: Studies on historical topics relevant to the Department of Defense (DOD), with an emphasis on military history and strategy.

• Precision Strike: Exploring future maturation and proliferation of precision strike technologies and concepts.

• Economics: Studying the economic conditions and constraints affecting relative military power, including economic warfare.

• Wargames: Developing innovative approaches to design and execute wargames for peer and near-peer competitors.

• Information Dimension of Warfare: Analyzing the role and value of information in military conflict and battle networks.

• Machine Intelligence: Understanding future developments in intelligent agents, machine learning, and robotics and their impact on warfare.

• Biotechnology: Understanding future developments in life sciences and their strategic implications.

• The United States as a Competitor: Analyzing characteristics of U.S. society that provide strategic advantage or vulnerability.

• Additional Research Topics: Proposals on other germane topics affecting geostrategic competition.

• The period of performance for awards typically ranges from one to five years.

• The funding instrument may be a contract, grant, cooperative agreement, or Other Transaction Agreement (OTA).

• The preferred contract type is a firm fixed priced level of effort contract with reimbursable expenses.

• Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) type contractual arrangements may be proposed for a stream of related proposals.

• Proposals must be submitted via email to whs.pentagon.ad.mbx.net-assessment@mail.mil.

• The email subject heading must specify the BAA area(s) of interest.

• Proposals must be unclassified.

• Technical Proposals must not exceed 30 pages and must include a Statement of Work (SOW).

• Price Proposals must include a detailed breakdown of costs.

• Proposals will be evaluated through a technical/price decision process, with technical considerations being more important than price.

• Evaluation Criteria: 1) Potential contribution and relevance to ONA's mission and DOD concerns; 2) Offeror's capabilities, related experience, and past performance; 3) Price analysis.

• Open to all profit and non-profit businesses and institutions of higher education.

• Non-U.S. organizations and individuals may participate if they comply with relevant regulations.

• All offerors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM).

• Proposals will be accepted for a period of five (5) years from June 14, 2023, through June 13, 2028.

• Specific proposal submission cut-off dates are listed in Section VIII.

• Technical and Cost Proposals will not be returned and will be treated as sensitive competitive information.

• The government provides no funding for direct reimbursement of proposal development costs.