Active

Contract Opportunity

NOTICE OF INTENT to Sole Source

SOLICITATION NUMBER: 75N95024Q00178

TITLE: National Institutes of Mental Health Video and Audio Library

CLASSIFICATION CODE: D -- Information technology services, including telecommunications services

NAICS CODE: 541512 Computer Systems Design Services

RESPONSE DATE: March 27, 2024, at 1:00 PM EST

PRIMARY POINT OF CONTACT:

Michael Horn

Michael.horn@nih.gov

DESCRIPTION:

INTRODUCTION

THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) SYNOPSIS TO AWARD A CONTRACT WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION (INCLUDING BRAND-NAME).

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with New York University (NYU).

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE and SET ASIDE STATUS

The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 541512 Computer Systems Design Services with a Size Standard of $34.0M.

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.5 — Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Products and Commercial Services. Acquisitions conducted under simplified acquisition procedures are exempt from the requirements in FAR Part 6 —Competition Requirements. Contracting Officers may solicit from one source in accordance with FAR 13.501(a)(1) if the Contracting Officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available (e.g., urgency, exclusive licensing agreements, brand-name or industrial mobilization).

The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through the Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) Number 2024-03, dated February23, 2024.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Research data collected from human research participants may include video and audio data sets. These recordings might be longitudinal or cross-sectional. Because video and audio recordings often contain faces or capture other sensitive information such as geospatial location, sharing such data poses both technical and policy-related challenges.

The NIH’s data management and sharing policy, NOT-OD-21-013, applies to all NIH research, funded or conducted in whole or in part by NIH, that results in the generation of scientific data, including video and audio data. The objective of this acquisition is to provide support to an existing informatics infrastructure to hold video and audio data sets from human research participants of interest to the NIMH. NIMH will select the data sets to be deposited into the infrastructure. Each year, NIMH can identify up to 10 new data sets to be deposited as the data become available. NIMH expects to identify 5-10 new data sets in a typical year.

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES:

The overarching goal of this acquisition is to provide support to use an existing informatics infrastructure to store video and/or audio data sets collected from human research participants. The infrastructure must also allow researchers to use the deposited data (either the raw data or derived) in a way that is consistent with the expectations of those who deposited the data into the infrastructure. The contractor will also provide a help desk that can answer questions and provide support to both data depositors and data requesters.

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT:

The vendor shall provide informatics infrastructure and associated support to store video and/or audio data sets collected from human research participants.

To the Government’s knowledge, NYU is the only vendor in the marketplace whose capability currently satisfies the following SOW requirements:

1. Extensive demonstrated experience curating and storing video and audio data collected from NIH-funded research in the behavioral, social, educational, developmental, and neurosciences and providing the resources necessary to accomplish the tasks and deliverables described in this SOW. Relevant experience includes project management, providing appropriate security for the data, optimizing the infrastructure to support the needs of this acquisition, technical support for data archiving and sharing, and providing a web portal. (NIH has observed a minimum of approximately 8 years as the timeframe that it takes for a vendor/organization to become a SME for the services detailed above, and for the system infrastructure to be considered reliable.)


2. Able to set up a collection for a grant award in the existing infrastructure and have that collection idle for as long as four years.


3. The ability to handle the required number of video/audio files per grant award, which is expected to be 300- 500 over the course of the award. Some grant awards may have as many as 2000 video/audio files.


4. An established process for determining that video/audio data have been obtained using appropriate informed consent (e.g. a process including a data submission agreement signed by the PI and an institutional official).

Contract Type: An Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract mechanism with Firm-Fixed Price Task Order(s) will be utilized.

Delivery Date: N/A. Services.

Period of Performance: The period of performance will not exceed 60 months.

Option(s): FAR 52.217-7, 52.217-8, and -9 options may be included in the resultant IDIQ task order(s).

CONTRACTING WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION (INCLUDING BRAND-NAME) DETERMINATION

The determination by the Government to award a contract without providing for full and open competition is based upon the market research conducted.

The intended source is:

New York University (NYU)

665 Broadway, Suite 801

New York, NY 10012

NYU is the only source that can satisfy SOW requirements 1) through 4) as described in the Description of Requirements section above.

CLOSING STATEMENT

THIS SYNOPSIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this notice.

A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency. The information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement.

Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties' bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the Comprehensive Service Agreement requirements contained in this notice and include your Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov. All responses must provide evidence that they can provide the requested services immediately upon order and in accordance with the aforementioned salient characteristic requirements.

All responses must be received by the closing date and time of this announcement, March 27, 2024, at 1:00 PM EST, and must reference the solicitation number, 75N95024Q00178.

Responses must be submitted electronically to Michael Horn, Contract Specialist, at michael.horn@nih.gov and Kyle Miller, at kyle.miller2@nih.gov .

U.S. Mail and fax responses will not be accepted.

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