--NETWORK AND INFORMATION SCIENCES INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE

Together the United Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defence (MoD) http://www.mod.uk/, and the US Department of the Army have been exploring mechanisms of improved research collaboration that would create a critical mass of government, private sector and aca demia scientists, engineers, and facilities/equipment focused on solving the military technology challenges in network centric warfare for coalition operations. Based on this experience, and noting our joint national commitment with the UK to increase the mutual value of collaboration, MoD and the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) http://www.arl.army.mil/, are currently involved in preliminary discussions on a new bilateral cooperative technology concept called an International Technology Alliance (ITA). We envision that this would bring together government, industry and academia in tackling some of the fundamental science underpinning the complex information netw ork issues that will be such a vital facet of future coalition military operations and engage the partners in a collaborative environment to fully exploit the joint development of emerging technologies. ARL and MoD will conduct Opportunity Conferences (OC) for industry and academia as part of the joint United States/United Kingdom ITA (see related announcement in FedBizOpps Special Notice dated 23 November 2004).There will be two Opportunity Conference s, one in the Washington DC Metro Area on 01 April 2005 and one in the London, England Metro Area on 07 April 2005 in order to prepare consortia of industry and academia from both nations in developing proposals to become participants in the ITA program. Additional information on the ITA program and the Opportunity Conferences is posted to the website http://www.usukita.com/ and will also appear in future notices. Under the ITA fundamental research will be sought in network theory, Security Across a System of Systems, Sensor Information Delivery, and Distributed Coalition Planning and Decision Making. Emphasis is on the synergistic combination of these technologies in support of a tactical coalition force. The ITA program will also provide a mechanism that will allow for the transition of the fundamental research results to military and commercial applications. Our vision is for the ITA to be modeled on the US Army Research Laboratorys Collaborative Technology Alliances (CTAs) as well as the UK Ministry of Defences Defence Technology Centres (DTCs). The CTAs utilize Cooperative Agreements linked to task order contracts to facilitate basic and applied research and ultimately the transition of those research results to military and commercial applications. The CTAs involve other US Government Agencies and are focused on transformation of new technologies. Addit ional information on the CTAs can be found at http://www.arl.army.mil/alliances. Defence Technology Centres are formal collaborative arrangement between industry and academic experts in a particular technology, defined and funded jointly by participants a nd the MOD. The Defence Technology Centres work within a formal contractual framework that facilitates collaboration and provides the opportunity to meet the needs of participating stakeholders via agreed goals. Additional information on the Defence Techno logy Centres can be found at http://www.dtc.mod.uk. A Draft ITA Program Bulletin is expected to be published in early March 2005. The ITA program will be limited to US and UK entities. The winning consortium will be required to have membership from both the US and UK, with a strong emphasis on collaborati on among the members. Potential consortium leads will be required to have an existing significant research and development (R&D) capability in both the US and UK. Organizations interested in participating in the ITA are requested to register their intere st on the ITA website. A similar announcement is being made in the UK.