The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Support

***THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) NOTICE***

BACKGROUND

NIST is conducting market research to support acquisition planning and budget development for a possible future contract, or series of contracts, related to the review of commercialization plans submitted with NIST Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) proposals.

We are seeking preliminary cost and capability information from organizations with relevant expertise in commercialization, technology transfer, business development, and investment for early-stage technology development that will ultimately lead to the technology's commercialization under the NIST SBIR program.

Under the contemplated requirement, qualified personnel under the contract would review individual commercialization plans, assess them against Government-provided evaluation criteria, and provide advisory scores and written comments. Government personnel would retain responsibility for all final evaluation, selection, and award decisions.

HOW TO RESPOND TO THIS NOTICE

In responding to this notice, please DO NOT PROVIDE PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. Please include only the following information, readable in either Microsoft Word 365, Microsoft Excel 365, or .pdf format, in the response:  Submit the response by email to the Primary Point of Contact and, if specified, to the Secondary Point of Contact listed in this notice as soon as possible, and preferably before the closing date and time of this notice. 

• Provide the complete name of your company, address, name of contact for follow-up questions, their email, their phone number and, if your company has an active registration in https://sam.gov, your company’s Unique Entity ID (UEI).

• For market-research purposes, please provide the following information:
  • Your estimated hourly labor rate for personnel qualified to perform this work.
  • The estimated number of labor hours required to review and score one commercialization plan.
  • Your estimated total cost per proposal.
  • Any minimum engagement, administrative, management, or other fees that may apply.
  • A brief description of the qualifications and relevant experience of the personnel who would perform the reviews.
  • Your organization’s ability to identify and address organizational and individual conflicts of interest.
  • Your ability to execute nondisclosure agreements and securely receive, handle, store, and dispose of proprietary proposal information.
  • Any assumptions that may affect your estimate, including anticipated plan length, evaluation criteria, required documentation, meetings, or turnaround time.

• or estimating purposes, respondents may assume the following unless otherwise stated:

• Estimated commercialization-plan length: 2 to 15 pages
• Estimated number of proposals: 20 to 30
• Expected review period: 15 - 30 days
• Anticipated turnaround time per proposal: 15 - 30 days
• Required deliverables: Advisory numerical score and written comments via an online peer review system

• Identify any aspects of the NIST market research notice, including instructions, and draft minimum specifications in the BACKGROUND section you cannot meet and state why.  Please offer suggestions for how the market research notice and draft minimum specifications could be made more competitive.

• For the NAICS code listed in this notice:

• • Indicate whether your company is (a) a small business or (b) other than small business.

• • If you believe the NAICS code listed in this notice is not the best NAICS code for the type of product addressed in this notice, identify an alternative NAICS code that you believe would be more appropriate for the planned procurement. 

• Provide any other information that you believe would be valuable for NIST to know as part of its market research for this requirement.

QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS NOTICE

Questions regarding this notice may be submitted via email to the Primary Point of Contact and the Secondary Point of Contact listed in this notice. Questions should be submitted so that they are received 5 days prior to the response date. If the Contracting Officer determines that providing a written amendment to this notice to document question(s) received would benefit other potential respondents, the questions would be anonymized, and a written response to such question(s) would be provided via an amendment to this notice.

IMPORTANT NOTES

This notice is for market research purposes and should not be construed as a commitment by NIST to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract.  There is no solicitation available at this time.

This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response.

NIST reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate.

Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization’s capability.

Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted.

After a review of the responses received, a synopsis and solicitation may be published on GSA’s eBuy or SAM.gov. However, responses to this notice will not be considered an adequate response to any such solicitation(s).

The responses shall not exceed [10] pages including all attachments, charts, etc.

Thank you for taking the time to submit a response to this request!