SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Information Warfare: Offensive and Defensive Counterinformation
- Notice Date
- 2/8/2006
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541710
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514
- ZIP Code
- 13441-4514
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-BAA-06-12-IFKA
- Description
- ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Initial announcement. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY NUMBER: BAA 06-12-IFKA CFDA Number: 12.800 DATES: It is recommended white papers be received by the following dates to maximize the possibility of award: FY 06 by 10 Mar 06; FY 07 by 1 May 06; FY 08 by 1 May 07 and, FY 09 by 1 May 08. White papers will be accepted until 2:00 p.m. Eastern time on 31 December 2009, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. FORMAL PROPOSALS ARE NOT BEING REQUESTED AT THIS TIME. See Section IV of this announcement for further details. I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION: AFRL/IF is soliciting white papers to identify and develop technologies to enable a distributed information infrastructure that provides all the mechanisms and services required to allow the warfighters to craft their C4I information environments, including ability to establish distributed virtual staffs, to share a common consistent perception of the battlespace, and construct distributed task teams among sensors, shooters, movers, and command posts. These technologies will be applied across the full spectrum of cyber operations, in support of Air Force mission requirements. Specific technologies include, but are not limited to: network protocols, information adaptation, network management, routing technologies, adaptive interfaces, distributed information environments, multimedia services, adaptive security services, global resource management, architectures, computer and network risk assessment/management, vulnerability assessment, assurance techniques, detection of intrusions and misuse, network security, wireless information assurance, assessment of information damage, cyber forensics, recovery of information systems and computer networks to operational levels, and a full spectrum of active response and computer network attack techniques. Information superiority is an integral part of air and space superiority, an Air Force doctrine. This gives the commander freedom from attack, the freedom to maneuver and the freedom to attack. Information superiority is that degree of information advantage of one force over another that permits the conduct of operations at a given time and place without prohibitive opposition. Information operations are not focused exclusively on information superiority and information operations alone is not sufficient to achieve information superiority. AFRL/IF has developed a responsive R&D technology program to help the US achieve information superiority. The technology research in this BAA will be focused in the following areas of information operations: influence operations, network warfare operations and electronic warfare operations. Influence Operations: Focused on affecting the perceptions and behaviors of leaders, groups, or entire populations. Influence operations employ capabilities to affect behaviors, protect operations, communicate commander's intent and project accurate information to achieve desired effects across the cognitive domain. These effects should result in differing objectives. The military capabilities of influence operations are psychological operations, military deception, operations security, counterintelligence operations, counterpropoganda operations and public affairs operations. Network Warfare Operations: The integrated planning, employment, and assessment of military capabilities to achieve desired effects across the interconnected analog and digital network portion of the battle space. Network warfare operations are conducted in the information domain through the combination of hardware, software, data and human interaction. The operational activities of network warfare operations are network attack, network defense and network warfare support. Electronic Warfare Operations: The integrated planning, employment, and assessment of military capabilities to achieve desired effects across the electromagnetic domain in support operational objectives. The objective of this BAA is to address highly innovative R&D areas in information operations. Proposed work should address the innovative and strategic thought of the 21st century adversary, and develop new concepts to counter with innovative information-based capabilities. Further, proposed work should address new concepts for continuously analyzing the information battle space to identify US vulnerabilities and adversary weaknesses, and develop new defensive and offensive strategies and capabilities accordingly. There are critical technical areas of focus under this BAA which are high leverage areas to be worked in order to address the most difficult Air Force requirements, provide the Air Force with the greatest technology push possible, and surface opportunities for contributing to important national security issues such as defending information systems and countering cyber terrorism. Network Attack: Employment of network-based capabilities to destroy, disrupt, degrade, deny, delay, corrupt or usurp information resident in or transiting through networks. A primary effect is to influence the adversary commander's decisions. Network Defense: Employment of network-based capabilities to defend friendly information resident in or transiting through networks against adversary efforts to destroy, disrupt, degrade, deny, delay, corrupt or usurp it. Actions include analyzing network activity to determine the appropriate course of action to protect, detect, and react to internal and external threats to Air Force networks. Network Warfare Support: The collection and production of network related data for immediate decisions involving network warfare operations. Specifically, network warfare support provides profiling, event analysis, open source review, as well as pattern analysis in support of network defense and countermeasure development. II. AWARD INFORMATION: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $40M. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows: FY 06 - $10M; FY 07 - $10M; FY 08 - $10M; and FY09 - $10M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 24 months with dollar amounts ranging between $100,000 and $1,000,000 per year. 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. III. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION: 1. ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: All potential applicants are eligible. Foreign or foreign-owned offerors are advised that their participation is subject to foreign disclosure review procedures. Foreign or foreign-owned offerors should immediately contact the contracting office focal point, Lori L. Smith, Contracting Officer, telephone (315) 330-1955 or e-mail Lori.Smith@rl.af.mil for information if they contemplate responding. The e-mail must reference the title and BAA 06-12-IFKA. 2. COST SHARING OR MATCHING: Cost sharing is not a requirement. IV. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION: 1. APPLICATION PACKAGE: THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION. WE ARE SOLICITING WHITE PAPERS ONLY. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL AT THIS TIME. 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. For additional information, a copy of the AFRL/Rome Research Sites "Broad Agency Announcement (BAA): A Guide for Industry," Aug 2005, may be accessed at: http://www.if.afrl.af.mil/div/IFK/bp-guide.doc. 2. CONTENT AND FORM OF SUBMISSION: Offerors are required to submit 5 copies of a 5 to 10 page white paper summarizing their proposed approach/solution. 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: Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Estimated Cost of Task, Name/Address of Company, Technical and Contracting Points of Contact (phone, fax and email); Section B: Task Objective; and Section C: Technical Summary and Proposed Deliverables. Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. If the offeror wishes to restrict its white papers/proposals, they must be marked with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a) and (b). In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) number, a fax number, and an e-mail address with their submission. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to the technical POC, as discussed in paragraph five of this section. 3. SUBMISSION DATES AND TIMES: It is recommended white papers be received by the following dates to maximize the possibility of award: FY 06 by 10 Mar 06; FY 07 by 1 May 06; FY 08 by 1 May 07 and, FY 09 by 1 May 08. White papers will be accepted until 2:00 p.m. Eastern time on 31 December 2009, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. 4. FUNDING RESTRICTIONS: 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 the DoD Grant and Agreements Regulations (DODGARS). 5. OTHER SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: DO NOT send white papers to the Contracting Officer. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to ATTN: Frances Rose, AFRL/IFGA, 525 Brooks Rd, Rome, NY 13441-4505. Respondents are required to provide their Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number with their submittal and reference BAA 06-12-IFKA. Electronic submission to Frances.Rose@rl.af.mil is also acceptable (if submitting electronically, you do not need to follow up by sending in 5 hard copies). V. APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION: 1. CRITERIA: The following criteria 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. Criteria 1 through 3 are of equal importance and of greater importance than criteria 4. (1) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit -- Including the approach for the development and/or enhancement of the proposed technology and its evaluation, (2) Related Experience - The extent to which the offeror demonstrates relevant technology and domain knowledge, (3) Openness/Maturity of Solution - The extent to which existing capabilities and standards are leveraged and the relative maturity of the proposed technology in terms of reliability and robustness, and (4) Reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and fees (if any). Also, consideration will be given to past and present performance on recent Government contracts, and the capacity and capability to achieve the objectives of this BAA. No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting white papers/proposals. Individual white paper/proposal evaluations will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria without regard to other white papers and proposals submitted under this BAA. White papers and proposals submitted will be evaluated as they are received. 2. REVIEW AND SELECTION PROCESS: Only Government employees 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, or 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. VI. AWARD ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION: 1. AWARD NOTICES: Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. Notification by email or letter will be sent by the technical POC. Such invitation does not assure that the submitting organization will be awarded a contract. Those white papers not selected to submit a proposal will be notified in the same manner. Prospective offerors are advised that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. All offerors submitting white papers will be contacted by the technical POC, referenced in Section VII of this announcement. Offerors can email the technical POC for status of their white paper/proposal no earlier than 45 days after proposal submission. 2. ADMINISTRATIVE AND NATIONAL POLICY REQUIREMENTS: Depending on the work to be performed, the offeror may require a TOP SECRET facility clearance and safeguarding capability; therefore, personnel identified for assignment to a classified effort must be cleared for access to TOP SECRET information at the time of award. In addition, the offeror may be required to have, or have access to, a certified and Government-approved facility to support work under this BAA. Data subject to export control constraints may be involved and only firms holding certification under the US/Canada Joint Certification Program (JCP) (www.dlis.dla.mil/jcp) are allowed access to such data. However, proposals may only be submitted at the unclassified or SECRET level. Proposals submitted above this level will not be accepted or considered. 3. REPORTING: Once a proposal has been selected for award, offeror's will be required to submit their reporting requirement through one of our web-based, reporting systems known as JIFFY or TFIMS. Prior to award, the offeror will be notified which reporting system they are to use, and will be given complete instructions regarding its use. VII. AGENCY CONTACTS: Questions of a technical nature shall be directed to the technical points of contact, as specified below: Frances Rose, (315) 330-2038; Email: Frances.Rose@rl.af.mil; Brian Spink, (315) 330-7596, Email: Brian.Spink@rl.af.mil. Questions of a contractual/business nature shall be directed to the cognizant contracting officer, as specified below: Lori Smith, Telephone (315) 330-1955, Email: Lori.Smith@rl.af.mil The email must reference the solicitation (BAA) number and title of the acquisition. In accordance with AFFARS 5315.90, an Ombudsman has been appointed to hear and facilitate the resolution of concerns from offerors, potential offerors, and others for this acquisition announcement. Before consulting with an ombudsman, interested parties must first address their concerns, issues, disagreements, and/or recommendations to the contracting officer for resolution. AFFARS Clause 5352.201-9101 Ombudsman (Aug 2005) will be incorporated into all contracts awarded under this BAA. The AFRL Ombudsman is as follows: Jeffrey E. Schmidt Colonel, USAF Director of Contracting (937) 255-0432 (voice) (937) 255-5036 (fax) All responsible organizations may submit a white paper which shall be considered.
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