A Plethora of Pathways to Do Business with the Federal Government
with brief notes and helpful links
You may already be familiar with the “Contracting Cone”, available through Defense Acquisition University, which outlines all of the ways to do business with the US federal government, including both the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and non-FAR based pathways.
Here are some abbreviated notes and links to give you the big picture in case you hadn’t considered one of these approaches before.
Non-FAR Options
OTs can include flexible business arrangements to acquire research and development activities to advance new technologies, and prototypes or models to evaluate technical or manufacturing feasibility or military utility of new or existing technology. OTs typically use RDT&E funding, but the statute does not prohibit use of other appropriations. Most laws and regulations governing federal contracts do not apply to OTs (i.e., Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA)).
Procurement for Experimental Purposes (10 USC §4023)
To acquire quantities necessary for experimentation, technical evaluation, assessment of operational utility, or to maintain a residual operational capability.
To partner with other federal agencies, state and local governments, academia, industry, and non-profits to collaboratively mature technologies, develop solutions, demonstrate capabilities, and/or accelerate technology transfers. These are flexible agreements with intellectual property provisions to share or protect IP rights.
Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) (15 USC §3710a)
A CRADA authorizes federal labs to enter into agreements with other federal agencies, state/local government, industry, non-profits, and universities for licensing agreements for lab developed inventions or intellectual property to commercialize products or processes originating in federal labs.
Partnership Intermediary Agreement (15 USC §3715)
A Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) is a contract, agreement, or memorandum of understanding with a non-profit partnership intermediary to engage academia and industry on behalf of the government to accelerate tech transfer and licensing. For the DoD: 10 U.S.C. §4124 authorizes Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories (STRLs) Center Directors to use PIAs. These are the STRLs designated by OUSD Research and Engineering (R&E).
Technology Investment Agreement (TIA) (32 CFR Part 37)
A TIA supports commercial firm involvement in pursuing best technologies for defense research. TIAs are appropriate when research objectives are unlikely to be achieved using other types of contract instruments. TIAs may be executed as a cooperative agreement or a type of assistance transaction other than a grant or cooperative agreement, such as a Research Other Transaction (OT) – 10 U.S.C. §4021.