The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) often selects its research efforts through the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) process. This publication constitutes a BAA as contemplated in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.102(d)(2) and 35.016 and 2 CFR § 200.203. Any resultant award negotiations will follow all pertinent law and regulation, and any negotiations and/or awards for procurement contracts will use procedures under FAR 15.4, Contract Pricing, as specified in the BAA. The following information is for those wishing to respond to the BAA.

Current warfighting systems are largely based on Concepts of Operations involving large, expensive, legacy platforms. These platforms are costly and time-consuming to develop. Although they provide unmatched capability, the significant investment they represent means that they must stay in service for decades, much longer than the evolution of the threat environment. In a dynamic high-end competition, these platforms are difficult to update with new technologies or modify in light of responsive threats. Moreover, these high-value systems are increasingly targeted by adversaries, and require significant investment for self-protection at the expense of force application. In addition, exquisite systems designed for high-end adversaries may be unaffordable in sufficient number for defending the homeland and an expensive overmatch for stabilization efforts. TTO seeks to identify, develop, and demonstrate systems that break the warfighter’s dependence on these increasingly outdated or vulnerable platforms, through approaches such as disaggregation, increased refresh opportunities, life cycle cost savings, leveraging of commercial technology, and similar approaches that provide the above benefits while retaining or increasing operational utility across a broader spectrum of strategic needs.

TTO also seeks to develop technologies to inflict doubt on our adversaries, to create strategic delays and create space and time for a U.S. response. In order to transform the battlespace, TTO seeks to reimagine the order of battle via a prism of disaggregation, diversification, dispersion, disruption and doubt. DARPA is built on a foundation of pivotal investments in high-risk technologies for national security; the Office-wide BAA represents a critical portal for innovation and initial investment towards developing the DARPA portfolio. TTO views the Office-wide BAA as an opportunity to gain knowledge or understanding necessary to determine the means by which a specific need may be met. Submissions should describe how an investment would provide the unique insight into the problem TTO is trying to solve, and quantifiably substantiate those assertions. These insights may include proof-of-concept prototypes, system analyses, or any other work product that identifies the path to a new demonstration concept. TTO encourages approaches that prove (or disprove) this unique insight as fast as possible – TTO is interested in quickly identifying promising technologies and moving them to the next phase of development.

TTO will seek innovative ways to develop, demonstrate, and employ breakthrough
technologies to generate surprise and leap-ahead military capability while adhering to the
DARPA Imperatives: defend the homeland against existential threats, deter and prevail
against high end adversary, and effectively prosecute stabilization efforts. TTO currently
has a strong portfolio supporting the deter and prevail against high end adversary imperative and will continue system demonstrations in this area. Specific emphasis will be placed on effectively prosecuting stabilization efforts. TTO will continue to work novel approaches and demonstrations supporting ground, air, space and maritime domains. To defend the homeland against existential threats, TTO will investigate novel ways to counter known and emerging threats. As such, TTO is explicitly not interested in approaches or technologies that offer incremental or evolutionary advancements beyond state-of-the-art. To see what DARPA/TTO is already investing in, please visit us online.

TTO recommends submitting an executive summary prior to a proposal abstract or a full
proposal submission to have your concept reviewed by TTO personnel to gauge interest.

Will NIH Accept Late Applications for New Awards From Applicants Affected by COVID-19?

NIH has announced an updated late policy for the parent institutional training grants which have just a single due date each year. In addition, some NIH ICs have issued late notices for specific funding opportunities, which are posted on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Information for NIH Applicants and Recipients of NIH Funding website. For all other Funding Opportunity Announcements NIH is taking a very flexible stance for applications submitted within the standard two week late policy. Applicants should include a cover letter with an explanation for the late submission.

Find this and more frequently asked questions on our COVID-19 Flexibilities FAQ page.

Preprints – complete, public drafts of scientific documents that are not yet certified by peer reviewed – are playing a key role in accelerating dissemination of research on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19, highlighting a need for broader discovery and distribution of early research results in literature searches. Responding to this urgent need, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has launched the NIH Preprint Pilot, which will test the viability of making preprints searchable in PubMed Central (PMC) and discoverable in PubMed, starting with preprints reporting NIH supported COVID-19 research. The pilot is expected to run for a minimum of 12 months, and lessons learned during that time will inform future NLM efforts with preprints.

The NIH Preprint Pilot builds on the March 2017 NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-17-050 which encouraged NIH investigators to use interim research products, such as preprints, to speed the dissemination and enhance the rigor of their work. It also complements PMC’s role as the archive for peer-reviewed author manuscripts supported by NIH under the Public Access Policy, seeking to accelerate broad discovery to these results in cases where investigators choose to post a preprint. 

NLM’s efforts for the first phase build on the work of the NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis iSearch COVID-19 Portfolio. NLM is using this resource to identify preprints reporting on COVID-19 research that are authored by NIH staff or by extramural grantees who acknowledge support of an NIH award. The initial COVID-19 collection of preprints added to PMC is expected to grow as curation workflows are refined and expanded. 

In future phases, the NIH Preprint Pilot can be extended across the spectrum of NIH research. To minimize effort required by NIH-funded investigators to make their preprints discoverable via PMC, there will not be a new submission process or system to add preprints to PMC. Rather, NLM will work directly with preprint servers, and NIH-funded investigators are strongly encouraged to follow the preprint process outlined in the 2017 Guide Notice:  

• Make the preprint publicly accessible (See also the “Guidance for selecting interim research product repositories” in the Guide Notice) 
• Acknowledge NIH support/funding 
• Clearly state the work is not peer reviewed 
• Declare any competing interests 

The notice also strongly encouraged awardees to select a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license or dedicate their work to the public domain. 

NIH awardees can report preprints on their RPPR and link them to their award in their My Bibliography account. NLM will simplify how to add a preprint citation to My Bibliography in Summer 2020 with the expectation that the pilot will expand to include those preprints reported in My Bibliography as products of NIH awards in PMC. (For guidance on how to currently add a preprint to My Bibliography, see the NIH Preprint Pilot FAQ.) 

For investigators looking for preprints, they will be integrated into your usual search results in PMC and PubMed. Both systems will make clear that the articles are preprints and not peer-reviewed journal articles. Prominent banners will explain that the papers have not been peer reviewed and link to information about the pilot for additional context. Users interested in only peer-reviewed articles will be able to filter out preprints from their search results.   

In launching this new preprint experiment in PMC, with an initial focus on COVID-19-related preprints, NLM hopes to meet the needs of the research community during the ongoing public health emergency response efforts and to learn more about the impact of accelerated discovery and open sharing of research results on scholarly communications. NLM encourages NIH investigators to explore the pilot FAQs further and send feedback throughout to pmc-preprints@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 

The scope of these projects focuses on fundamental research that answers critical questions related to uncertainty associated with Great Lakes basin hydrologic, hydraulic, and climate science. The results of the research are intended to serve the public, and it is expected that the research tasks will be conducted in close involvement with federal government representatives including (but not limited to) scientists and engineers from USACE, National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration, Environment Climate Change Canada, nonprofit public interest groups and other members of the public.

The proposed project would focus on conducting research related to exploring alternative approaches for incorporating various models of Great Lakes connecting channel flows, evaporation and run-off into the large lake statistical water balance model (link below). In some instances, the government will be responsible for generating associated models for uncertainty analysis in the large lake statistical water balance model.

The government will provide a team member and fulfill required, parallel tasks in order to advance this research. The water balance model is open source and has been used to investigate evaporation and channel discharge as case studies in the Great Lakes. The USACE would like to expand some of these case studies and initiate new studies.

eRA is moving to two-factor authentication via login.gov, meaning that log-in will require something you know (password) and something you have (a phone or other device). This new log-in method, optional at first but which may be required later, is coming for users of eRA Commons, Commons Mobile, IAR and ASSIST.

The move is part of HHS’s Reinvent Grants Management Initiative to provide the applicant and grantee community the ability to log in to four different grants systems (eRA, Grants.gov, GrantSolutions and Payment Management System) using the same user name and password via login.gov.

Access to eRA modules via login.gov will be available from April 8. Use of login.gov will be initially optional (except for a pilot group of peer reviewers). This new type of log-in will be available along with other existing log-in methods.

STEP 1 — Click on the login.gov option on eRA Commons

1. When you click on the login.gov option on the eRA Commons home screen, you will be redirected to https://login.gov/

Note: If you already have a login.gov user name and password, enter it. You will go directly to Step 3 below.

STEP 2 — Create a login.gov account

1. Enter email address at login.gov
2. Receive email verification
3. Verify email address
4. Create password
5. Choose a primary authentication method – for instance, select phone
   1. Enter phone number
   2. Enter security code received by text message
   3. Set up is confirmed
6. Set up a secondary authentication method – for instance, an authenticator app
   1. Scan barcode and enter authenticator code
   2. Set up is confirmed
7. Your account creation at login.gov is confirmed. Click Continue to return to eRA Commons.

 STEP 3 — Associate your login.gov account with your eRA Commons account (one-time only)

1. The eRA Commons mapping page is displayed. Enter your eRA credentials – user name and password – to associate your login.gov account with your eRA Commons account. You will only do this once.

YOU ARE DONE — You will be returned to eRA Commons. The next time you log into eRA Commons using login.gov, you will automatically be redirected to eRA Commons without having to log in again.