R&D | The Contracting Education Academy

January 22, 2013 By AMK

Contractors spoke, SBA listened: Rules for R&D funds altered

Contractors with outside investors can tap research funds set aside for small businesses, thanks to a new rule from the Small Business Administration, though an outcry from the small business community led to some restrictions.

First, some background. As reported in May, the SBA proposed allowing small businesses that are majority-owned by venture capital and private equity firms or hedge funds to particulate in two popular programs: the Small Business Innovation Research Program and the 1992 Small Business Technology Transfer Act. Those small business have not before qualified for these programs.

The Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR, was established to strengthen the role of small businesses in federally funded research and development. The Small Business Technology Transfer Act, knowns as STTR, requires federal agencies with R&D budgets of more than $1 billion per fiscal year to fund small businesses.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2012/12/firms-sound-off-on-new-rule-allowing.html?ana=&page=all

January 11, 2013 By AMK

All DoD components told to prepare to freeze hiring, terminate temporary hires, reduce base operations, and curtail expenses

Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has released a memo directing the services and defense agencies to begin planning for possible upcoming budget challenges.

The memo allows defense components to freeze civilian hiring, terminate temporary hires and reduce base operating funds. It also allows components to curtail travel, training and conferences and to curtail administrative expenses.

The memo — dated Jan. 10, 2013 — points to the threat of sequestration and the continued use of a continuing resolution as a way to fund the department. Sequestration was to have become effective Jan. 2, but Congress delayed its activation until March 1 to give lawmakers more time to come up with an alternative. It would impose major across-the-board spending cuts.

Since Congress did not approve an appropriations act for fiscal 2013, the Defense Department has been operating under a continuing resolution and will continue to do so at least through March 27. Because most operating funding was planned to increase from fiscal 2012 to fiscal 2013, but instead is being held at fiscal 2012 levels under the continuing resolution, funds will run short at current rates of expenditure if the continuing resolution continues through the end of the fiscal year in its current form, Carter wrote in the memo.

Given this budgetary uncertainty, the department must take steps now, the deputy secretary said.

“I therefore authorize all Defense components to begin implementing measures that will help mitigate execution risks,” the memo reads. “For now, and to the extent possible, any actions taken must be reversible at a later date in the event that Congress acts to remove the risks. … The actions should be structured to minimize harmful effects on our people and on operations and unit readiness.”

The memo allows components to review contracts and studies for possible cost savings, to cancel third- and fourth-quarter ship maintenance, and to examine ground and aviation depot-level maintenance. This last must be finished by Feb. 15.

It also calls on all research and development and production and contract modifications that obligate more than $500 million to be cleared with the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics before being awarded.

For science and technology accounts, the components must provide the undersecretary and the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering with an assessment of the budgetary impacts that the budgetary uncertainty will cause to research priorities.

Full text of the Ashton Carter memorandum can be downloaded here: Budgetary Uncertainty Memorandum – Ashton Carter 01.10.2013

November 16, 2012 By AMK

Contract competition increasing at DHS, think tank says

Contract competition at the Homeland Security Department has increased significantly, according to a new report that still warns inadequate spending on research and development may hinder DHS down the road.

The paper published Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that the majority of contracts that DHS has issued since 2006 were subject to some form of competition during the bidding process. The scholars studied this by looking at data from the Federal Procurement Data System and analyzing the number of offers the department received from bidders, the contract’s funding mechanism and the type of contract vehicle used.

“Both total dollars and the share of DHS contracts awarded under competition with multiple offers increased significantly in 2010 and continued to increase in 2011, rising to a 51 percent share of overall DHS contract obligations,” the report said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2012/11/contract-competition-increasing-dhs-think-tank-says/59493/.

August 30, 2012 By AMK

FAR clause on small business R&D set asides to be confusing no more

The writers of federal regulations controlling procurements say a clause telling contracting officers when to set aside research and development contracts worth more than the simplified acquisition threshold needs clarification.

In an Aug. 10 notice in the Federal Register, the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council says language in FAR 19.502-2(b) regarding setting aside R&D contracts for small businesses when worth more than the simplified acquisition threshold (currently $150,000) is the subject of a clarification request from the Small Business Administration.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/far-clause-small-business-rd-set-asides-be-confusing-no-more/2012-08-20?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss.

February 24, 2012 By AMK

Budget reflects shift in scientific R&D, education

President Barack Obama has requested $140.8 billion for research and development activities for fiscal 2013, which includes a requested 5 percent increase in non-defense R&D spending from 2012.

The budget, released Feb. 13, reflects the president’s commitment to promoting and funding scientific discovery, innovation for business and manufacturing, and clean energy development, as well as improving education, said John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There also is a total of $3 billion requested for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education programs.

Overall, R&D spending represents a small fraction of the proposed $3.8 trillion budget, but it represents a major investment in the economic and national security of the nation.

Three agencies account for much of the scientific R&D work being done — the National Science Foundation, the Energy Department’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology — and the budget request includes $13.1 billion in research programs at these agencies.

Officials from those agencies and from the White House OSTP had outlined the administration’s science and technology goals for the coming year in a Jan. 13 briefing.

Federal spending on non-defense R&D peaked at about $73 billion in 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and fell back to about $60 billion in 2010. It climbed slowly over the next two years, and the total request for non-defense R&D for 2013 is $65 billion.

The Energy Department’s $27.2 billion request “reflects tough choices” for cutting in some areas in order to focus on more productive investments, said David Sandalow, DOE assistant secretary for policy and internal affairs.

This includes cutting from programs that already have succeeded, including $4 billion in annual tax subsidies to oil, gas and other fossil fuel producers, and from programs that are not working. Some 35 research programs that show no signs of being successful have been cut.

DOE’s Office of Science budget request for the coming year is about $5 billion. Included in it are $95 million for wind energy research and $310 million for the SunShot initiative for affordable solar energy. Another $770 million would go to the Office of Nuclear Energy for programs, including research on advanced small modular reactors. Smart grid and energy storage research would get $143 million, and $155 million has been requested for carbon capture and storage research.

Another $350 million would go to the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E, for “investments in high-performing programs [that] will help position the United States as a world leader in the clean energy economy, and create the foundation for new industries and new jobs.”

The Energy Department also is the steward for the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and $7.6 billion is proposed for weapons activities, an increase of $363 million or 5 percent above what was enacted for fiscal 2012. But by reducing and stretching out the schedule of several weapons life extension programs, the current budget request is $372 million less than the amount requested for weapons activities last year.

Another $1.1 billion is requested to support work on naval reactors, including support for current nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers, as well as for development of reactors for a new class of ballistic missile submarines. The request also includes $2.5 billion for accelerated efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials within the next four years.

The National Science Foundation provides more than 80 percent of federal funding for computer science research in this country, said NSF Director Subra Suresh. The agency’s funding request for 2013 is $7.37 billion, up $340 million or 4.8 percent from what it received in 2012, Suresh said. This includes $57 million for a coordinated cybersecurity research initiative, and $459 million for the prestigious graduate fellowship and early career faculty programs.

Cuts to NSF administrative expenses are expected to save $19 million.

NIST is housed in the Commerce Department, which would get $5 billion under the 2013 proposal, up by $380 million from 2012. NIST laboratories would receive $708 million, an increase of $86 million over 2012 levels for what the administration calls investments in the country’s long-term economic growth and competitiveness. Much of this would be for research in such areas as bio-manufacturing and nano-manufacturing, including $21 million for a new Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program. This would be a public-private partnership created to support research to address common manufacturing challenges faced by businesses.

NIST also houses the National Program Office for the president’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. That office would be funded at $8 million in 2013.

Investments in STEM education are aimed at an administration goal of preparing 100,000 teachers in this area over the next decade, including recruiting 10,000 new teachers in the next two years. The budget includes $80 million for the Effective Teachers and Leaders State Grant program for this, and funds a jointly administered mathematics education initiative with $30 million each from the Education Department and NSF.

About the Author: William Jackson is a senior writer of Government Computer News and the author of the CyberEye column. This article appeared Feb. 13, 2012 at http://gcn.com/articles/2012/02/13/2013-budget-science-technology-research-funding.aspx?s=gcndaily_140212.

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