DHHS, Office of the Secretary, Div. of Contract Operations, Room 443H, HHH Bldg., 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20201

R -- SHORT-TERM POLICY ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION. POC Contact Point, Cheryl L. Howe, (202)690-5552 The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is responsible for: providing timely policy oriented information for use by the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, and other senior policy officials in their legislative, budgetary, and other policy decisions; and conducting policy research and evaluation to improve the design and performance of current programs and develop alternatives to them. The objective of the proposed contract is to obtain short-term studies that will assist DHHS in meeting these objectives. The contractor will complete individual delivery orders issued throughout the course of the contract. Individual delivery orders, conducted under the proposed contract, will be issued to conduct three major types of studies: short-term policy assessments; short-term program evaluations; and evaluation synthesis, state of the art studies, and state of practice studies. It is important that DHHS grant programs produce results which satisfy wider populations than the grantees and grantee employees whose efforts they support. In particular, programs, and individual grantees and grants, should yield benefits which can be both recognized and appreciated by the legislatively identified ultimate beneficiaries - sick and poor individuals and their families, and those at risk of disease and poverty. These benefits should also be apparent to the taxpaying public responsible for providing the funds which we distribute to our selected grantees. HBCUs appear to be uniquely well situated to assist DHHS and our major grantees in the work of assessing the impacts and results of our grant programs, as recognized by and within populations of ultimate beneficiaries - that is, to a large extent, in the significantly black populations of the geographic and cultural environments of the HBCUs. Through the mobilization of the powers of analysis, synthesis, and advocacy which is characteristic of these academic institutions, historically associated with the beneficiary populations, we could expect to receive invaluable guidance on program formulation, evaluation, and redirection. This activation of the resources of HBCUs focuses on their intrinsic competencies and characteristics, rather than on building new capabilities onto their established structures. DHHS intends to negotiate only with orgainizations desiginated as Historicially Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as determined by the Secretary of Education to meet the requirements of 34 CFR 606.2. Any organization capable of meeting the objectives cited above should submit a statement fo capabilities with documentation supporting its ability to meet the governments requirement as described above. No solicitation document is available. See Note 22. (0043)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0053 19960213\R-0004.SOL)