The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters Office of Education, in cooperation with the NASA Johnson Space Center and other NASA Centers, is releasing a Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) for NASA Internships. On or about January 16, 2013, this CAN will be available electronically through the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and then clicking the link through the menu listings "Solicitations" to "Open Solicitations." Institutions eligible to respond to this CAN are limited to higher education institutions, nonprogit organizations, and consortia or groups of organizations and institutions serving higher education students, whose mission includes capturing student interest and/or improving student performance in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) or related fields. The estimated annual value of the award is $3,000,000 to $10,000,000 per year, for a period of performance not to exceed 5 years. It is anticipated that this award will be an indefinite quantity and cost reimbursement cooperative agreement. The recipient of this single award will support sub-agreements at 10 NASA centers delineated by unique cooperative agreement numbers assigned by the NASA Shared Services Center. All centers will follow the same guidelines. The breakdown by center is necessary to ensure costs are tracked correctly. This will allow each NASA facility to easily transfer funding from any technical or administrative organization for support of NASA Internships. The single entity recipient of this award will be responsible for identifying and submitting costs and drawdowns per each center's cooperative agreement number. Due to the variability of this funding model, the successful proposer must have an accounting system considered adequate for tracking and reporting costs applicable to the agreement from multiple funding sources. (See Table 2, Section II for a list of current NASA intern ship locations.) NASA is looking for a flexible and scalable partner who can be innovative and impactful while delivering, sustainable, demonstrable and measureable results. A Notice of Intent (NOI) is requested to assist NASA in assessing the possible response to this CAN; and to determine the number of subject matter experts required for the Proposal Review Panel. NOIs should be submitted by the proposer to NSPIRES by midnight (11:59 p.m.) Eastern Time, February 13, 2013. Instructions for submitting the NOI and the proposal in NSPIRES are found under Section III of this announcement (Proposal and Submission Information). Interested proposers must register with NSPIRES before it can be accessed for use. In order to avoid any conflict of interest in assigning reviewers to proposals, please include a list of participating/partnering institutions in your NOI. All proposals in response to this CAN must be submitted electronically via the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) (http://nspires.nasaprs.com ) or Grants.gov. Electronic proposals must be submitted in their entirety by 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time on the proposal due date of March 13, 2013. Respondents without access to the Web or who experience difficulty using the NSPIRES proposal site (http://nspires.nasaprs.com ) may contact the Help Desk at
[email protected] or call 202-479-9376. This solicitation leading to the award of a Cooperative Agreement is issued pursuant to title 14 CFR Part 1260 for educational and nonprofit institutions and 14 CFR part 1274 for commercial organizations. Notwithstanding the posting of this opportunity at FedBizOpps.gov, Grants.gov, or at both sites, NASA reserves the right to determine the appropriate award instrument for each proposal selected pursuant to this announcement. The points of contact for technical and programmatic questions regarding this CAN are: Technical Officers: Ms. Carolyn Knowles Office of Education NASA Headquarters 300 E Street, SW Washington, DC 20546
[email protected] Mr. Robert Musgrove Office of Education Johnson Space Center 2101 NASA Parkway Houston, TX 77058
[email protected] NASA Internship Solicitation Support: Tamra Ross NASA Research & Education Support 2345 Crystal Drive - Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22202
[email protected] 202-479-9030, Ext. 213 202-479-0511 (fax) Questions regarding this announcement must be presented in writing to Tamra Ross at
[email protected] within 30 calendar days of the release date in order that responses may be obtained and disseminated within 5 business days. Oral questions will not be answered due to the possibility of misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Questions and responses will be posted on the NSPIRES website at http://nspires.nasaprs.com .