Trusted Partner Program Coming Soon

The U.S. Army, through the Army Research Office and the Office of Contracting at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is issuing a presolicitation for the Trusted Partner Program, a multiple-award IDIQ contract aimed at establishing a cadre of trusted academic partners—including institutions of higher education and their affiliated entities—to conduct rapid, sensitive basic and applied scientific research in support of national defense priorities. The solicitation, numbered W911NF26RA009, targets research in Scaled Directed Energy and Scaled Hypersonics, requiring multidisciplinary expertise across physics, electronics, chemistry, materials science, information sciences, and biology, with an emphasis on integrating these fields to address complex Army needs. The base performance period is five years, beginning September 2026, with an optional five-year extension, bringing the total potential contract value to $400 million, with individual task orders to be issued under cost-plus-fixed-fee or firm-fixed-price arrangements. Offerors must submit proposals in five separate volumes, each as a searchable PDF, along with a supplemental unclassified video pitch between three and seven minutes in length, formatted in MPEG-4 at 1080p resolution. Proposals are due by 4:00 PM Eastern Time on July 15, 2026, and must be emailed to the designated point of contact. Evaluation will be conducted based on five factors, ranked in order of importance: Technical (most important), Management, Past Performance, Small Business, and Cost & Business Structure (least important non-cost factor). No numerical weights are assigned, and the award will be made using a trade-off process emphasizing superior technical merit over price, with the expectation that all non-cost factors combined carry significantly greater weight than cost. The Technical factor includes equally weighted subfactors centered on expertise in six core disciplines and six critical interdisciplinary projects, assessed using adjectival ratings from BLUE (outstanding, low risk) to RED (unacceptable, unawardable). Compliance with regulatory requirements is strict: contractors must maintain active UEI and CAGE codes in SAM, adhere to cybersecurity maturity model certification requirements, and submit all deliverables in accordance with Department of Transportation packaging standards and marking requirements that include contract number, project title, and sensitive data classification. Travel is highly regulated, requiring prior COR approval and adherence to JTR per diem limits; OCONUS travel necessitates SPOT registration and a Letter of Authorization. Organizational conflicts of interest will be rigorously assessed, and all