SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- NTP Technical Reports Preparation Support Services
- Notice Date
- 4/4/2008
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- National Institutes of HealthNational Institute of EnvironmentalHealth SciencesResearch Triangle ParkNC27709
- ZIP Code
- 27709
- Solicitation Number
- NIHES2008017
- Response Due
- 6/5/2008 5:00:00 PM
- Archive Date
- 7/5/2008
- Point of Contact
- SEDGLEY, DAVID C +1 919 541 4027, sedgley@niehs.nih.gov
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is soliciting proposals, from all Small Businesses, for the National Toxicology Program (NTP) Technical Reports Preparation Support Services. The concept review for this program has not been completed and cancellation of this RFP due to disapproval is a possibility. The Contractor shall serve as a resource to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for the preparation of Public Health Service documents describing NTP studies of the toxicology and carcinogenicity of selected chemicals. The documents to be produced are generically known as Technical Reports, which are government-produced, peer-reviewed, book-style documents describing in full detail studies conducted and overseen by the NTP. Two principal kinds of reports will be produced, differing primarily in length and the type of review process they undergo. For the purpose of this acquisition these will be called long or short reports. The first are book-length monographs (approximately 150 to 300 pages) that provide an overview of the literature on the biologic effects of a particular substance or set of chemicals and full details of the conduct, results, and interpretation of long-term (generally 2-year) NTP studies of the effects of the test chemical in rodents. The subject matters in these reports include general toxicology, animal physiology, histologic and clinical pathology, chemistry, genetics, and statistics, and may also on occasion include pharmacology, molecular biology, immunotoxicity, developmental and reproductive toxicology, or other related disciplines. Historically these reports have primarily consisted of Technical Reports on long-term carcinogenesis studies, but future reports, similar in size and complexity, may deal with other specialties such as reproductive or developmental toxicology. The short reports also describe a variety of toxicity studies in rodents, generally shorter in duration. Historically these reports have been NTP Toxicity Reports on short-term toxicity studies in rodents, but future reports may also deal with other specialties such as immunotoxicity. These reports are generally shorter in length (50 to 150 pages) and involve the same subject areas as the long reports. The Contractor shall work in consultation, through a collaborative process, with NTP staff scientists and NTP contractors to provide technical writing, copy editing, proofreading, word processing, desktop publishing, graphics, file research, and record keeping services. The Contractor shall engage in report preparation activities, at the direction of the Project Officer, for approximately 40 reports in various stages at one time. Each report will be prepared in a series of five (long report) or four (short report) drafts, each incorporating text, materials, and revisions from NTP staff. Each report will be presented for outside peer review at one of the intermediate draft stages; some reviews of Technical Reports are conducted in public session. The Contractor shall provide review draft reports for each draft stage and shall also prepare desk top publishing files for use by the Government and PDF and/or HTML files for display on the NIEHS World Wide Web servers. Approximately 12 long reports and 12 short reports shall be presented for review and completed each year; the Contractor should expect to commence preparation of approximately two reports per month and to deliver approximately two drafts per week. The Contractor should be prepared to provide flexibility in scheduling deliverables, in consultation with the Project Officer, to accommodate Program needs, particularly to accommodate the presentation of several (as many as eight to ten) reports for review at one time. The contractor shall archive all materials received, maintain a log of all materials received and delivered, and submit a biweekly status report detailing the status of each report in preparation and the cumulative labor hours spent on each report. All materials sent to the Contractor are considered the property of the Government, and are not be used for any other purpose. Each report shall follow a standard format and will contain a cover page, various front matter, (e.g. Note to the Reader; Title Page; Tables of Contents, Figures, and Tables; lists of contributors; and in later drafts, lists of reviewers and summary of reviewers comments and an overall summary) separate sections for an Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, and various Appendixes. Page layout will include text, tables (both embedded in pages of text and multi-page data sets), line art graphics, and photomicrographs with captions. In various drafts, text may have different spacing and columniation. Pages will carry headers and/or footers identifying the report by name and number, draft status, and page number. At various draft stages the page numbering may be either numerically consecutive from the front or alphanumeric for individual appendixes. Contents and format requirements are subject to periodic revision by the Program and the Project Officer. Examples of currently produced reports are available for view under NTP Study Reports on the NTP website http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov. Reports are to be prepared with suitable software publishing package with the capability to incorporate the entire report, including all headings, text, tables, line art images, and photomicrographs, into a single file. The Contractor shall be able to produce hard copies, electronic files, and Portable Document (PDF) and/or hypertext machine language (HTML) files of the entire report, or sections thereof, for use by Program. The reports shall be compliant with established ETI accessibility standards (information about Section 508 is available at http://www.section508.gov). The Contractor shall be able to receive and capture electronic files with text, graphics, and tables from a variety of sources, platforms, and programs. Electronic data accessing methods will include reading disks, e-mail attachments (originating both from Macintosh and PC platforms), and World Wide Web sites. These files may be in a variety of formats and programs, including but not limited to MS Word (various versions) for text files, Excel spreadsheets, and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), GIF, or JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files for photographs. The Contractor should also be able to read and capture text with citations incorporated in reference libraries (e.g., EndNote). The Contractor shall be responsible for ensuring the accuracy of transcription of any electronically converted or hand-keyed text or data. On occasion the Contractor may be asked to prepare graphical displays of data (e.g., time plots or bar graphs) or chemical structures and metabolism pathways. These should be prepared as transportable files with programs such as Photoshop for line art, Freehand for graphics, and Chem Draw or ISIS/Draw for chemical structures and not be embedded in a proprietary format. The contractor shall have the capability of scanning line art graphics (e.g., chemistry spectra, schematic diagrams) into electronic files at a resolution of 600-1200 dpi. In the event that photographs (rather than digital files) of photomicrographs are provided, the contractor shall have the capability of scanning the photograph at the original quality and producing a TIFF file at a final resolution of 300 dpi for color images or with gray tones for black and white images. For all graphics the contractor shall use programs that capture the required information in a file format without loss of quality of the image. During the report preparation process the Contractor shall be able to extract portions of entire sections or the report and send them as electronic files to NTP staff for review. Separately the contractor will also provide a portable reference library file for all the references cited in that report. The Contractor will certify that a written enforced administrative process to identify, manage, reduce and eliminate conflicting financial interest is currently in effect. The anticipated effective date of the subsequent award is November 1, 2008. The performance period for the base contract is expected to be 60 months. Should the Government choose to exercise the time extension options for continued support; the period may be extended to October 31, 2018. For estimating purposes the Government anticipated an approximate level-of-effort of 12 person-years per year for the length of the contract and for each one-year extension option. The Government anticipates the participation of a principal investigator, a production supervisor, four senior science writers, two technical writers/copy editor, two desktop publishing specialists and two clerical staff. The expected release date of the RFP is April 21, 2008 with proposals due June 5, 2008. Interested organizations should request a copy of the RFP in writing to Contract Specialist, P.O. Box 12874, 79 T.W. Alexander Drive, Building 4401, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709; by telephone (919) 541-4027 or by FAX request (301) 435-2709. On the release date an online version of the RFP will be available on the internet in a PDF format attached to this synopsis. The proposed contract is 100% set aside for small business concerns.
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