National Institute of Health Baby Toolbox (NBT) Video and Audio Library

Active

Contract Opportunity

NOTICE OF INTENT to Sole Source

SOLICITATION NUMBER: 75N94024Q00093

TITLE: National Institute of Health Baby Toolbox (NBT) Video and Audio Library

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

NAICS CODE: 541512 Computer Systems Design Services

RESPONSE DATE: May 7, 2024, at 4:00 PM EST

PRIMARY POINT OF CONTACT:

Mr. Dana L. Harris

Harrisd@nih.gov

DESCRIPTION:

INTRODUCTION

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

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) 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 (CO) 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 data 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 Final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing, NOT-OD-21-013 with an effective January 25, 2023, applies to all NIH research, funded or conducted in whole or in part by NIH, that results in the generation of scientific data, including photographic, video and audio data. The objective of this acquisition is to provide support to an existing informatics infrastructure to ingest and securely hold video and audio (i.e., continuous) data sets acquired from human research participants of interest to the NICHD, with the intent to enable sharing some or all data.

NICHD, on behalf of the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research (BP), specifically seeks to support data sets generated using the NIH Infant and Toddler Toolbox (aka the NIH Baby Toolbox or NBT, a digital assessment tool that collects and analyzes audio-visual and square (i.e., discrete) data) to be deposited into and shared by the infrastructure.

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES:

The overarching goal of this acquisition is to provide support to use an existing informatics infrastructure to ingest, curate, and securely store complex human participant research and clinical data sets generated using the NBT. The infrastructure must also allow authorized researchers to search and 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 and NIH datasharing policies and NOT-OD-21-013. 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 an informatics infrastructure and associated support to ingest, curate, store, and share video and/or audio data sets, and associated square data collected from human research participants using the NBT in a format that will enable future data sharing.

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

1. Extensively demonstrated experience ingesting, curating, storing, and sharing photographic, video and audio (continuous) data, and associated discrete, non-continuous data collected from NIH-funded research in the behavioral, social, educational, developmental, and neuro- sciences 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 public web portal that is known to this research community. (NIH has observed a minimum of approximately 8 years as the timeframe that it takes for a vendor/organization to become a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the services detailed above, and for the system infrastructure to be considered reliable.


2. Able to ingest and share complex datasets as a unitary collection from an individual NIH contract or grant award in the existing infrastructure and have that collection available for sharing to authorized researchers and/or idle for no less than four calendar years.


3. The ability to handle the required number of video/audio files per contract or grant award, which is expected to be 1-10 depositors over the course of the award. Some awards may have as many as 400,000 unique data files, including unique video/audio files, associated with as many as 4,500 human participants.


4. An established process for determining that photographic and 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).


5. An established and equitable process for determining which researchers are authorized to have access to and reuse of the repository data for unique research purposes, in accordance with the individual informed consent on record and NIH policies regarding data sharing and privacy.

Contract Type: A Firm-Fixed Price contract will be utilized.

Delivery Date: Not Applicable (N/A). Services.

Period of Performance: The period of performance will not exceed twelve (12) months and the anticipated start date of performance will be on or about August 1, 2024.

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 A) through E) as described in the Description of Requirements section above.

CLOSING STATEMENT

This is not a Request for Proposals (RFP). However, if any responsible source believes it can perform the above requirement, it may submit a capability statement electronically for consideration by the NICHD to Dana Harris, Contracting Officer at harrisd@nih.gov.

Information regarding respondents': (a) staff expertise, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training; (b) current in-house capability and capacity to perform the work,; (c) prior completed projects of a similar nature; (d) corporate experience and management capability; and (e) examples of prior completed Government contracts, references, and other related information should be provided if you submit a capability statement. Your capability statement should be no more than 15 pages in length, excluding resumes. All responses must be received by email no later than May 7, 2024, 4:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, and must contain material in sufficient detail to allow the NICHD to determine if the organization can perform this requirement. Emails must reference the announcement number in the subject line. The capability statement will be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. This is not an RFP, and this announcement does not commit the Government to a contract. The reference number to be used is 75N94024Q00093.

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 Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), 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 salient characteristic requirements.

All responses must be received by the closing date and time of this announcement, May 7, 2024, at 4:00 PM EST, and must reference the solicitation number, 75N95024Q00093.

Responses must be submitted electronically to Dana L. Harris, Contracting Officer at harrisd@nih.gov .

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

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