Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter recently issued a revised "management plan" to tighten ties with federally funded research and development centers.
In a May 2, 2011, memo, first reported earlier this week by Defense News, Carter announced a revised plan "that provides improved clarity to better assist your oversight and management of the FFRDCs you sponsor." Additionally, the DOD acquisition chief has released so-called "How-to-Guides" that "provide detailed guidance in areas that frequently present procedural questions and challenges."
Inside the Pentagon reported in December that FFRDCs were established to provide the Defense Department "with unique analytical, engineering and research capabilities in many areas where the government cannot attract and retain personnel in sufficient depth and numbers," as Carter wrote in a Dec. 9, 2010, memo.
"They also operate in the public interest free from organizational conflicts of interest and can therefore assist us in ways that industry contractors cannot," his December memo added. FFRDCs maintain core competencies in domains that continue to be of great importance to DOD, the memo noted.
Given the centers' special relationship with the rest of the defense enterprise, "I view them as a vial component of the overall acquisition workforce, along with the government's acquisition workforce and the for-profit contractor expertise," Carter's May 2 memo states. "All three are critical to a strong acquisition process. In using FFRDCs, we must take advantage of their freedom from organizational conflicts of interest and of their long-term capabilities that are not available to us elsewhere.
"I urge you to focus them on the department's most pressing matters, and educate your workforce to the unique capabilities this resource brings to the department," the memo continues.
Carter's memo cites "topics requiring additional work that will be addressed in subsequent How-to-Guides, such as overarching FFRDC Non-Disclosure Agreements, recognition and handling of FFRDC employees deploying overseas, and Post-employment Restrictions for FFRDC employees that return from DOD Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) 'detail' assignments."
"Several changes were made" to the management plan, according to the Carter memo, "to emphasize the long-term, strategic nature of the relationship between the department and the FFRDCs. This plan contains a change in wording on the typical period of performance for FFRDC contracts compared to the May 2003 version of the plan."
Carter emphasizes that the wording change "does not reflect a change in law or policy, rather it connotes that, consistent with current law and regulation, the long-term strategic relationship between the FFRDC and their respective sponsor should be addressed in the sponsoring agreement."