Alternative Authorities

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, Public Law 111-358, is available to all federal agencies and invites ideas and solutions through crowdsourcing.

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a three-phased competitive awards-based program that enables small businesses to explore their technological potential and provides the incentive to profit from its commercialization of Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) efforts.

Other Transaction (OT) authorities were created to give DoD the flexibility necessary to adopt and incorporate business practices that reflect commercial industry standards and best practices into its award instruments. As of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 815, the DoD currently has permanent authority to award OT under (10 U.S.C. 2371) for (1) Research, (2) Prototype, and (3) Production Purposes. 11 other agencies have OT authority - including DHS and NASA.

The National Technical Information Service's (NTIS) joint venture partnership authority, within the Department of Commerce, leverages leading, innovative companies, academia, and non-profits to help solve complex data challenges within the federal government. Agencies can leverage this authority by entering into an interagency agreement with NTIS.

The Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) is an authority for acquiring innovative and commercial solutions. Section 880 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017 (Pub. L. 114-328) authorized DHS and GSA to implement a pilot program to competitively procure innovative commercial items, technologies, and services using CSO procedures. This authority can be implemented as FAR or non-FAR based, the authority is silent on the direction.