Core Solicitation Process

The Core solicitation is normally released in mid-November as both a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the non-federal (industry and academia) sector and a Call for Proposals to the federal Sector. The processes for each are different up until the review of full proposals.

THE BAA PROCESS

PRE-PROPOSALS

The BAA uses a pre-proposal process for the initial screening of projects. SERDP recognizes that there is a significant cost involved in writing a full proposal and, therefore, seeks to limit this effort to projects which are expected to be competitive. Short pre-proposals (5 pages) normally are due to the SERDP Program Office in early January. These pre-proposals are reviewed by the SERDP staff and selected technical experts.

The Relevancy Gate

The first review criteria is a Pass/Fail relevancy gate. This gate is to ensure that (1) the project addresses the Statement of Need and (2) the project is research. It is important to remember that SERDP funds only basic and applied research and technology development up through "bench scale" proof of principle. SERDP does not fund demonstration and validation of existing technologies or engineering development of proven technologies.

Review Against Published Criteria

After passing the relevancy gate, pre-proposals are reviewed against the criteria published in the solicitation. There are normally five criteria including technical merit, personnel, transition potential, cooperative development, and cost. Based on this review, those projects which are expected to be competitive in the full proposal review are encouraged to submit full proposals. The entire pre-proposal review process normally takes three weeks to complete.

THE FEDERAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS PROCESS

AGENCY DOWN SELECT

The Federal Call for Proposals is distributed to SERDP's member agencies (DoD, DOE, and EPA) through the members of the SERDP Executive Working Group (EWG). Typically, each EWG member may forward two full proposals per Statement of Need to the SERDP Program Office for consideration. Each agency thus does its own internal down select of proposals to those that are considered to be competitive in the final evaluation. Each agency performs this function internally, and SERDP does not prescribe the process to be used. Those federal agencies which are not SERDP partners may submit full proposals to the EWG representative from the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology or the representative from the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations & Environment.

REVIEW OF FULL PROPOSALS FOR BOTH FEDERAL AND NON-FEDERAL SUBMISSIONS

PEER REVIEW

The first step in the proposal review process is a staff review to ensure that all full proposals meet the relevancy gate described above. All full proposals from both the BAA and the federal call are subjected to an external peer review. The proposals are all reviewed together. The SERDP peer review process was modeled after the process used by the National Science Foundation. Peer review panels consist of a minimum of three reviewers but sometimes will include more members to ensure that all of the proposed technologies receive adequate reviews. Peer reviewers evaluate the proposals on the Technical Merit and Personnel criteria only.

TECHNICAL COMMITTEE

The Technical Committee consists of technical experts from the SERDP member agencies. Each specific committee is responsible for reviewing all of the SONs within its focus area. Working on a consensus basis, the committees review the proposals based on all five criteria (technical merit, personnel, transition potential, cooperative development, and cost) and make funding recommendations to the Source Selection Evaluation Board.

THE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD (SAB)

The SERDP statute created the SAB and requires its members review all projects in excess of $1 Million. The role of the SAB has been modified over the years to include the review of all New Start projects. The Executive Director will notify the Principal Investigator who will then be scheduled to brief the proposal to the SAB. The SAB reviews New Starts during its September and October meetings. A Principal Investigator usually will have a month to prepare this brief, and the SERDP staff provides guidance and assistance in preparing the brief. As part of this assistance, a pre-brief to the staff is required.

SOURCE SELECTION EVALUATION BOARD (SSEB)

The SSEB is comprised of members of the SERDP staff and is chaired by the Technical Director. The SSEB reviews all of the proposals, as well as all of the processes used to arrive at the funding recommendations to ensure accuracy and propriety. Upon completion of their review, the SSEB members forward their recommendations to the Executive Director for approval as the Source Selection Authority.