Global Competitive Analysis

The Basic Research Office (BRO) within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering seeks proposals to assess and report on Global Competitive Analysis (GCA). The recipient will collaborate with the federal government to deliver comparative analysis assessing the relative science and technology (S&T) competitive balance between the United States and major global competitors. Given the breadth of the expertise and perspectives likely needed to deliver GCA products at the scale and analytic depth required, BRO expects that recipients would need to form a consortium of FFRDCs, UARCs, universities, non-profits, or other non-governmental entities. This being said, a consortium is not required and other teaming arrangements are eligible for award.

The recipient will prepare reports that assess the myriad elements of relative technology leadership, explore the implications of competitors’ actions, provide a common operating picture of global technological competition, and create a forum to explore policy options. The recipient will serve as a key performer of the GCAT (Global Competitive Analysis Team), a federated interagency mechanism that brings together agencies’ unique analytic capabilities in order to conduct GCA. The recipient will integrate their independent analysis with agency analysis to deliver products that are more than the sum of the parts.

The recipient will take its priorities and guidance from an Executive Office of the President-led Panel (“EOP Panel”) that includes senior representation from relevant federal agencies. In the first year of the program, initial topics, currently four in number, are provided to set the direction of the recipient, with input from the EOP Panel once the Panel has been established.

The recipient is expected to have capability in all of the sub-elements described in Section C. However, to diversify the analysis and ensure that multiple views are represented in each GCA product, the recipient is expected to continuously identify and include external/additional performers possessing strong capabilities in a subset of the described elements, as necessary.