National Institutes of Health, Division of Research Contracts, OCGM, 6100 Executive Blvd., MSC 7540, Room 6E01, Bethesda, MD, 20892-7540

B -- TECHNICAL SUPPORT SERVICES FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES IN TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER SOL NIH-OD-96-06 POC Carl A. Newman, Contract Specialist, 301-496-4487. The Office of Medical Applications of Research (OMAR), Office of Extramural Research, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health is seeking small businesses with the capability to provide ''Technical Support for Research and Development Activities in Technology Assessment and Technology Transfer''. OMAR's purpose is to provide a central focus within the NIH for the coordinating of technology assessment (TA) and technology transfer (TT) activities. This project will provide technical support enabling OMAR to identify and assess medical technologies. Judgements shall be made to their suitability for incorporation into medical practice as well as to further the understanding and advancement of disease prevention research and health promotion. Specifically, the selected contractor shall furnish administrative, management, and clerical support for the approximately 6 Consensus Development Conference (CDC) meetings per year. Offerors shall demonstrate their ability to provide a conference facility room for at least 25 people and adjoining support rooms (clerical, duplicating, food serving, break-out, etc.) to support the CDC and other executive meetings. Offerors shall also demonstrate their ability to provide computer and statistical expertise and resources for the purpose of disseminating consensus conference information. Offerors shall demonstrate conference facility availability for a CDC meeting with 6 months notification but only a one week notification may be given for a Pre-CDC meeting. If Contractors do not own their own facility, offerors must be able to demonstrate commitment of facilities through September 30, 1999. The conference area shall be located proximate to the NIH campus (within approximately 30 minutes commuting time at any given time of the day). Frequent interaction is required between the Contractor and the Project Officer during the planning process and the CDC meetings. Offerors must demonstrate their capability for a 24 hour turnaround time for the preparation and revision of typed materials such as agendas ad abstracts as well as slides. For CDC meetings, the selected contractor shall prepare budgetary data and cost estimates, formal invitation lists, supervise travel authorizations, reservations and reimbursements, conference room assignments, special services and rental needs and registration with the facility. The offeror shall demonstrate their capabilities by indicating the degree of availability and prompt accessibility of a pool of experienced and professional personnel skilled in the management and coordination of scientific meetings. In addition the offeror shall demonstrate their capability to promptly access operational equipment and their respective back-up to handle work overflow during peak periods. Following a CDC, the selected contractor shall furnish post- conference support, i.e., reimbursement of up to 50 national and international experts for their travel and lodging, Consensus Statement (CS) mailings and other technical details such as closing out all conference files. The Contractor shall prepare, collect data and/or disseminate other information products through the NIH Consensus Program Information Service which serves as a support center to OMAR for the dissemination of NIH Consensus Statements, NIH Technology Assessment Statements, conference announcements, and other program related materials. Offerors shall be required to document their expertise in technical writing and reporting, media relations, scientific journal routing, teleconferencing, speech writing, and other channels of medical communications as considered essential. The contractor shall conduct Technology Assessment seminars and workshops, select outside experts and consultants to advance the state-of-the-art of Technology Assessment (TA) and Technology Transfer (TT) and/or write scientific papers/reviews on a particular technology. These scientific papers shall be written by the contractor or by a designated expert. Offerors shall document the capability to develop and implement approaches and procedures for identifying medical technologies, tracking them and then soliciting and summarizing expert opinions. The contractor shall evaluate previous and ongoing TA/TT activities such as surveys to assess the extent, the effectiveness and impact of OMAR'S dissemination efforts. These efforts shall be required throughout the three years of the contract as the need arises. Therefore, offerors shall demonstrate teir capability to provide a Project Manager with relevant previous experience in the successful management of large scale, multi-faceted TA/TT contracts within the scientific research environment with an emphasis on the biomedical environment (including coordinating areas such as prevention and relevant processes outside of Government, conducting bibliographic searches and collecting information on candidate technologies). This experience shall be broad in scope, encompassing a thorough knowledge of Government operations and procedures. Offerors must demonstrate their capabilities to provide ''Other Staff'' that can provide technical assistance in the major areas specified above demonstrating a thorough familiarity with biomedical research and TA/TT. This shall include technical writing, report preparation, on line data base searching, strategic planning and analysis, evaluation principles, diffusion theory as it relates to biomedical research, legislative and policy analysis, commercial uses for biomedical research, designing and implementing methodologies for reviewing and assessing ongoing technology assessment and diffusion processes, exhibit management, and conference coordination. This staff experience shall be current within the past 3-4 years. Offerors must provide references of the last three years performing similar work or Government Contracting (including work at the NIH, providing phone numbers of Project Officers, Contracting Officers). A descriptive summary of relevant, recent Government contracting experience shall be provided. Offerors must demonstrate their capability to clearly understand the background and evolution of the work to be performed in the TA/TT and evaluation areas by including a statement and discussion of anticipated difficulties and problem areas, together with potential and/or recommended approaches for resolution. Only small business organizations as defined pursuant to Section 3 of the Small Business Act are asked to respond to this synopsis. This is not a Request for Proposals (RFP) and the Government is not committed to award a contract pursuant to this announcement. The Government, also, reserves the right to site visit any small business submitting a capability statement to aid in the evaluation of the potential for performing the required work. Small business concerns that believe they possess the capability necessary to complete this work shall submt their capability statement within 15 days from the date of the publication of this announcement. The Standard Industrial Code (SIC) is 8742. If this program is determined to be a small business set aside, a competitive RFP will be sent to all qualified small business concern offerors. (0326)

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