The Small Business Administration Office of Investment and Innovation seeks to determine the availability of contractors that can provide a variety of services in support of the Regional Innovation Clusters, or RICs, initiative, which seeks to establish networks of organizations that work to support small businesses, enabling them to grow and become competitive.
The required services cover the building of cluster networks, the management and oversight of RICs, the delivery of small business support and the development of reports, according to a sources sought notice posted Monday on SAM.gov.
The government expects to conduct a competition for the requirement that will result in up to 12 time and material contract awards. July 1 is the target start of the performance period.
Interested parties have until May 2 to respond to the notice. Respondents must indicate the geographic location of their proposed innovation cluster and the industry they are targeting.
Of particular interest to the government are industries that line up with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s critical and emerging technology areas, which include artificial intelligence, advanced computing and manufacturing, clean energy generation and storage, hypersonics, quantum information and enabling technologies and semiconductors and microelectronics.