Title 32—National Defense--Volume 1
PART 37—TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS
§ 37.100   What does this part do?
This part establishes uniform policies and procedures for the DoD Components' award and administration of technology investment agreements (TIAs).
§ 37.105   Does this part cover all types of instruments that 10 U.S.C. 2371 authorizes?
No, this part covers only TIAs, some of which use the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371 ( see appendix B to this part). This part does not cover assistance instruments other than TIAs that use the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371. It also does not cover acquisition agreements for prototype projects that use 10 U.S.C. 2371 authority augmented by the authority in section 845 of Public Law 103-160, as amended.
§ 37.110   What type of instruments are technology investment agreements (TIAs)?
TIAs are assistance instruments used to stimulate or support research. As discussed in appendix B to this part, a TIA may be either a kind of cooperative agreement or a type of assistance transaction other than a grant or cooperative agreement.
§ 37.115   For what purposes are TIAs used?
The ultimate goal for using TIAs, like other assistance instruments used in defense research programs, is to foster the best technologies for future defense needs. TIAs differ from and complement other assistance instruments available to agreements officers, in that TIAs address the goal by fostering civil-military integration ( see appendix A to this part). TIAs therefore are designed to:
(a) Reduce barriers to commercial firms' participation in defense research, to give the Department of Defense (DoD) access to the broadest possible technology and industrial base.
(b) Promote new relationships among performers in both the defense and commercial sectors of that technology and industrial base.
(c) Stimulate performers to develop, use, and disseminate improved practices.
§ 37.120   Can my organization award or administer TIAs?
Your office may award or administer TIAs if it has a delegation of the authorities in 10 U.S.C. 2371, as well as 10 U.S.C. 2358. If your office is in a Military Department, it must have a delegation of the authority of the Secretary of that Military Department under those statutes. If your office is in a Defense Agency, it must have a delegation of the authority of the Secretary of Defense under 10 U.S.C. 2358 and 2371. Your office needs those authorities to be able to:
(a) Enter into cooperative agreements to stimulate or support research, using the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2358, as well as assistance transactions other than grants or cooperative agreements, using the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371. The reason that both authorities are needed is that a TIA, depending upon its patent rights provision ( see appendix B to this part), may be either a cooperative agreement or a type of assistance transaction other than a grant or cooperative agreement.
(b) Recover funds from a recipient and reuse the funds for program purposes, as authorized by 10 U.S.C. 2371 and described in § 37.580.
(c) Exempt certain information received from proposers from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as authorized by 10 U.S.C. 2371 and described in § 37.420.
§ 37.125   May I award or administer TIAs if I am authorized to award or administer other assistance instruments?
(a) You must have specific authorization to award or administer TIAs. Being authorized to award or administer grants and cooperative agreements is not sufficient; a grants officer is an agreements officer only if the statement of appointment also authorizes the award or administration of TIAs.
(b) You receive that authorization in the same way that you receive authority to award other assistance instruments, as described in 32 CFR 21.425 and 21.435 through 21.445.
§ 37.130   Which other parts of the DoD Grant and Agreement Regulations apply to TIAs?
(a) TIAs are explicitly covered in this part and part 21 of the DoD Grant and Agreement Regulations (DoDGARs). Part 21 (32 CFR part 21) addresses deviation procedures and other general matters that relate to the DoDGARs, to DoD Components' authorities and responsibilities for assistance instruments, and to requirements for reporting information about assistance awards.
(b) Two additional parts of the DoDGARs apply to TIAs, although they do not mention TIAs explicitly. They are:
(1) Part 1125 (2 CFR part 1125) on nonprocurement debarment and suspension, which applies because it covers nonprocurement instruments in general;
(2) Part 26 (32 CFR part 26), on drug-free workplace requirements, which applies because it covers financial assistance in general; and
(3) Part 28 (32 CFR part 28), on lobbying restrictions, which applies by law (31 U.S.C. 1352) to TIAs that are cooperative agreements and as a matter of DoD policy to all other TIAs.
(c) Portions of other DoDGARs parts apply to TIAs only as cited by reference in this part.
§ 37.200   What are my responsibilities as an agreements officer for ensuring the appropriate use of TIAs?
You must ensure that you use TIAs only in appropriate situations. To do so, you must conclude that the use of a TIA is justified based on:
(a) The nature of the project, as discussed in § 37.205;
(b) The type of recipient, addressed in § 37.210;
(c) The recipient's commitment and cost sharing, as described in § 37.215;
(d) The degree of involvement of the Government program official, as discussed in § 37.220; and
(e) Your judgment that the use of a TIA could benefit defense research objectives in ways that likely would not happen if another type of assistance instrument were used. Your answers to the four questions in § 37.225 should be the basis for your judgment.
§ 37.205   What judgments must I make about the nature of the project?
You must:
(a) Conclude that the principal purpose of the project is stimulation or support of research ( i.e., assistance), rather than acquiring goods or services for the benefit of the Government ( i.e., acquisition);
(b) Decide that the basic, applied, or advanced research project is relevant to the policy objective of civil-military integration ( see appendix A of this part); and
(c) Ensure that, to the maximum extent practicable, any TIA that uses the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371 ( see appendix B of this part) does not support research that duplicates other research being conducted under existing programs carried out by the Department of Defense. This is a statutory requirement of 10 U.S.C. 2371.
(d) When your TIA is a type of assistance transaction other than a grant or cooperative agreement, satisfy the condition in 10 U.S.C. 2371 to judge that the use of a standard grant or cooperative agreement for the research project is not feasible or appropriate. As discussed in appendix B to this part:
(1) This situation arises if your TIA includes a patent provision that is less restrictive than is possible under the Bayh-Dole statute (because the patent provision is what distinguishes a TIA that is a cooperative agreement from a TIA that is an assistance transaction other than a grant or cooperative agreement).
(2) You satisfy the requirement to judge that a standard cooperative agreement is not feasible or appropriate when you judge that execution of the research project warrants a less restrictive patent provision than is possible under Bayh-Dole.
§ 37.210   To what types of recipients may I award a TIA?
(a) As a matter of DoD policy, you may award a TIA only when one or more for-profit firms are to be involved either in the:
(1) Performance of the research project; or
(2) The commercial application of the research results. In that case, you must determine that the nonprofit performer has at least a tentative agreement with specific for-profit partners who plan on being involved when there are results to transition. You should review the agreement between the nonprofit and for-profit partners, because the for-profit partners' involvement is the basis for using a TIA rather than another type of assistance instrument.
(b) Consistent with the goals of civil-military integration, TIAs are most appropriate when one or more commercial firms (as defined at § 37.1250) are to be involved in the project.
(c) You are encouraged to make awards to consortia (a consortium may include one or more for-profit firms, as well as State or local government agencies, institutions of higher education, or other nonprofit organizations). The reasons are that:
(1) When multiple performers are participating as a consortium, they are more equal partners in the research performance than usually is the case with a prime recipient and subawards. All of them therefore are more likely to be directly involved in developing and revising plans for the research effort, reviewing technical progress, and overseeing financial and other business matters. That feature makes consortia well suited to building new relationships among performers in the defense and commercial sectors of the technology and industrial base, a principal objective for the use of TIAs.
(2) In addition, interactions among the participants within a consortium potentially provide a self-governance mechanism. The potential for additional self-governance is particularly good when a consortium includes multiple for-profit participants that normally are competitors within an industry.
(d) TIAs also may be used for carrying out research performed by single firms or multiple performers in prime award-subaward relationships. In awarding TIAs in those cases, however, you should consider providing for greater involvement of the program official or a way to increase self-governance ( e.g., a prime award with multiple subawards arranged so as to give the subrecipients more insight into and authority and responsibility for programmatic and business aspects of the overall project than they usually have).
§ 37.215   What must I conclude about the recipient's commitment and cost sharing?
(a) You should judge that the recipient has a strong commitment to and self-interest in the success of the project. You should find evidence of that commitment and interest in the proposal, in the recipient's management plan, or through other means. A recipient's self-interest might be driven, for example, by a research project's potential for fostering technology to be incorporated into products and processes for the commercial marketplace.
(b) You must seek cost sharing. The purpose of cost share is to ensure that the recipient incurs real risk that gives it a vested interest in the project's success; the willingness to commit to meaningful cost sharing therefore is one good indicator of a recipient's self-interest. The requirements are that:
(1) To the maximum extent practicable, the non-Federal parties carrying out a research project under a TIA are to provide at least half of the costs of the project. Obtaining this cost sharing, to the maximum extent practicable, is a statutory condition for any TIA under the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371, and is a matter of DoD policy for all other TIAs.
(2) The parties must provide the cost sharing from non-Federal resources that are available to them unless there is specific authority to use other Federal resources for that purpose ( see § 37.530(f)).
(c) You may consider whether cost sharing is impracticable in a given case, unless there is a non-waivable, statutory requirement for cost sharing that applies to the particular program under which the award is to be made. Before deciding that cost sharing is impracticable, you should carefully consider whether there are other factors that demonstrate the recipient's self-interest in the success of the current project.
§ 37.220   How involved should the Government program official be in the project?
(a) TIAs are used to carry out cooperative relationships between the Federal Government and the recipient, which requires a greater level of involvement of the Government program official in the execution of the research than the usual oversight of a research grant or procurement contract. For example, program officials will participate in recipients' periodic reviews of research progress and will be substantially involved with the recipients in the resulting revisions of plans for future effort. That increased programmatic involvement before and during program execution with a TIA can reduce the need for some Federal financial requirements that are problematic for commercial firms.
(b) Some aspects of their involvement require program officials to have greater knowledge about and participation in business matters that traditionally would be your exclusive responsibility as the agreements officer. TIAs therefore also require closer cooperation between program officials and you, as the one who decides business matters.
§ 37.225   What judgment must I make about the benefits of using a TIA?
Before deciding that a TIA is appropriate, you also must judge that using a TIA could benefit defense research objectives in ways that likely would not happen if another type of assistance instrument were used ( e.g., a cooperative agreement subject to all of the requirements of 32 CFR part 34). You, in conjunction with Government program officials, must consider the questions in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section, to help identify the benefits that may justify using a TIA and reducing some of the usual requirements. In accordance with § 37.1020, you must document your answers to these questions in the award file. Note that you must give full concise answers only to questions that relate to the benefits that you perceive for using the TIA, rather than another type of funding instrument, for the particular research project. A simple “no” or “not applicable” is a sufficient response for other questions. The questions are:
(a) Will the use of a TIA permit the involvement in the research of any commercial firms or business units of firms that would not otherwise participate in the project? If so:
(1) What are the expected benefits of those firms' or divisions' participation (e.g., is there a specific technology that could be better, more readily available, or less expensive)?
(2) Why would they not participate if an instrument other than a TIA were used? You should identify specific provisions of the TIA or features of the TIA award process that enable their participation.
(b) Will the use of a TIA allow the creation of new relationships among participants at the prime or subtier levels, among business units of the same firm, or between non-Federal participants and the Federal Government that will help the DoD get better technology in the future? If so:
(1) Why do these new relationships have the potential for helping the DoD get technology in the future that is better, more affordable, or more readily available?
(2) Are there provisions of the TIA or features of the TIA award process that enable these relationships to form? If so, you should be able to identify specifically what they are. If not, you should be able to explain specifically why you think that the relationships could not be created if an assistance instrument other than a TIA were used.
(c) Will the use of a TIA allow firms or business units of firms that traditionally accept Government awards to use new business practices in the execution of the research that will help us get better technology, help us get new technology more quickly or less expensively, or facilitate partnering with commercial firms? If so:
(1) What specific benefits will the DoD potentially get from the use of these new practices? You should be able to explain specifically why you foresee a potential for those benefits.
(2) Are there provisions of the TIA or features of the TIA award process that enable the use of the new practices? If so, you should be able to identify those provisions or features and explain why you think that the practices could not be used if the award were made using an assistance instrument other than a TIA.
(d) Are there any other benefits of the use of a TIA that could help the Department of Defense better meet its objectives in carrying out the research project? If so, you should be able to identify specifically what they are, how they can help meet defense objectives, what features of the TIA or award process enable the DoD to realize them, and why the benefits likely would not be realized if an assistance instrument other than a TIA were used.
§ 37.230   May I use a TIA if a participant is to receive fee or profit?
In accordance with 32 CFR 22.205(b), you may not use a TIA if any participant is to receive fee or profit. Note that this policy extends to all performers of the research project carried out under the TIA, including any subawards for substantive program performance, but it does not preclude participants' or subrecipients' payment of reasonable fee or profit when making purchases from suppliers of goods ( e.g., supplies and equipment) or services needed to carry out the research.
§ 37.300   What is the difference between an expenditure-based and fixed-support TIA?
The fundamental difference between an expenditure-based and fixed-support TIA is that:
(a) For an expenditure-based TIA, the amounts of interim payments or the total amount ultimately paid to the recipient are based on the amounts the recipient expends on project costs. If a recipient completes the project specified at the time of award before it expends all of the agreed-upon Federal funding and recipient cost sharing, the Federal Government may recover its share of the unexpended balance of funds or, by mutual agreement with the recipient, amend the agreement to expand the scope of the research project. An expenditure-based TIA therefore is analogous to a cost-type procurement contract or grant.
(b) For a fixed-support TIA, the amount of assistance established at the time of award is not meant to be adjusted later if the research project is carried out to completion. In that sense, a fixed-support TIA is somewhat analogous to a fixed-price procurement contract (although “price,” a concept appropriate to a procurement contract for buying a good or service, is not appropriate for a TIA or other assistance instrument for stimulation or support of a project).
§ 37.305   When may I use a fixed-support TIA?
You may use a fixed-support TIA if:
(a) The agreement is to support or stimulate research with outcomes that are well defined, observable, and verifiable;
(b) You can reasonably estimate the resources required to achieve those outcomes well enough to ensure the desired level of cost sharing ( see example in § 37.560(b)); and
(c) Your TIA does not require a specific amount or percentage of recipient cost sharing. In cases where the agreement does require a specific amount or percentage of cost sharing, a fixed-support TIA is not practicable because the agreement has to specify cost principles or standards for costs that may be charged to the project; require the recipient to track the costs of the project; and provide access for audit to allow verification of the recipient's compliance with the mandatory cost sharing. You therefore must use an expenditure-based TIA if you:
(1) Have a non-waivable requirement ( e.g., in statute) for a specific amount or percentage of recipient cost sharing; or
(2) Have otherwise elected to include in the TIA a requirement for a specific amount or percentage of cost sharing.
§ 37.310   When would I use an expenditure-based TIA?
In general, you must use an expenditure-based TIA under conditions other than those described in § 37.305. Reasons for any exceptions to this general rule must be documented in the award file and must be consistent with the policy in § 37.230 that precludes payment of fee or profit to participants.
§ 37.315   What are the advantages of using a fixed-support TIA?
In situations where the use of fixed-support TIAs is permissible (see §§ 37.305 and 37.310), their use may encourage some commercial firms' participation in the research. With a fixed-support TIA, you can eliminate or reduce some post-award requirements that sometimes are cited as disincentives for those firms to participate. For example, a fixed-support TIA need not:
(a) Specify minimum standards for the recipient's financial management system.
(b) Specify cost principles or standards stating the types of costs the recipient may charge to the project.
(c) Provide for financial audits by Federal auditors or independent public accountants of the recipient's books and records.
(d) Set minimum standards for the recipient's purchasing system.
(e) Require the recipient to prepare financial reports for submission to the Federal Government.
§ 37.400   Must I use competitive procedures to award TIAs?
DoD policy is to award TIAs using merit-based, competitive procedures, as described in 32 CFR 22.315:
(a) In every case where required by statute; and
(b) To the maximum extent practicable in all other cases.
§ 37.405   What must my announcement or solicitation include?
Your announcement, to be considered as part of a competitive procedure, must include the basic information described in 32 CFR 22.315(a). Additional elements for you to consider in the case of a program that may use TIAs are described in §§ 37.410 through 37.420.
§ 37.410   Should my announcement or solicitation state that TIAs may be awarded?
Yes, once you consider the factors described in subpart B of this part and decide that TIAs are among the types of instruments that you may award pursuant to a solicitation, it is important for you to state that fact in the solicitation. You also should state that TIAs are more flexible than traditional Government funding instruments and that provisions are negotiable in areas such as audits and intellectual property rights that may cause concern for commercial firms. Doing so should increase the likelihood that commercial firms will be willing to submit proposals.
§ 37.415   Should I address cost sharing in the announcement or solicitation?
To help ensure a competitive process that is fair and equitable to all potential proposers, you should state clearly in the solicitation:
(a) That, to the maximum extent practicable, the non-Federal parties carrying out a research project under a TIA are to provide at least half of the costs of the project (see § 37.215(b)).
(b) The types of cost sharing that are acceptable;
(c) How any in-kind contributions will be valued, in accordance with §§ 37.530 through 37.555; and
(d) Whether you will give any consideration to alternative approaches a proposer may offer to demonstrate its strong commitment to and self-interest in the project's success, in accordance with § 37.215.
§ 37.420   Should I tell proposers that we will not disclose information that they submit?
Your solicitation should tell potential proposers that:
(a) For all TIAs, information described in paragraph (b) of this section is exempt from disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)(codified at 5 U.S.C. 552) for a period of five years after the date on which the DoD Component receives the information from them.
(b) As provided in 10 U.S.C. 2371, disclosure is not required, and may not be compelled, under FOIA during that period if:
(1) A proposer submits the information in a competitive or noncompetitive process that could result in their receiving a cooperative agreement for basic, applied, or advanced research under the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2358 or any other type of transaction authorized by 10 U.S.C. 2371 (as explained in appendix B to this part, that includes all TIAs); and
(2) The type of information is among the following types that are exempt:
(i) Proposals, proposal abstracts, and supporting documents; and
(ii) Business plans and technical information submitted on a confidential basis.
(c) If proposers desire to protect business plans and technical information for five years from FOIA disclosure requirements, they must mark them with a legend identifying them as documents submitted on a confidential basis. After the five-year period, information may be protected for longer periods if it meets any of the criteria in 5 U.S.C. 552(b) (as implemented by the DoD in subpart C of 32 CFR part 286) for exemption from FOIA disclosure requirements.
§ 37.500   What must my pre-award business evaluation address?
(a) You must determine the qualification of the recipient, as described in §§ 37.510 and 37.515.
(b) As the business expert working with the program official, you also must address the financial aspects of the proposed agreement. You must:
(1) Determine that the total amount of funding for the proposed effort is reasonable, as addressed in § 37.520.
(2) Assess the value and determine the reasonableness of the recipient's proposed cost sharing contribution, as discussed in §§ 37.525 through 37.555.
(3) If you are contemplating the use of a fixed-support rather than expenditure-based TIA, ensure that its use is justified, as explained in §§ 37.560 and 37.565.
(4) Address issues of inconsistent cost accounting by traditional Government contractors, should they arise, as noted in § 37.570.
(5) Determine amounts for milestone payments, if you use them, as discussed in § 37.575.
§ 37.505   What resources are available to assist me during the pre-award business evaluation?
Administrative agreements officers of the Defense Contract Management Agency and the Office of Naval Research can share lessons learned from administering other TIAs. Program officials can be a source of information when you are determining the reasonableness of proposed funding ( e.g., on labor rates, as discussed in § 37.520) or establishing observable and verifiable technical milestones for payments ( see § 37.575). Auditors at the Defense Contract Audit Agency can act in an advisory capacity to help you determine the reasonableness of proposed amounts, including values of in-kind contributions toward cost sharing.
§ 37.510   What are my responsibilities for determining that a recipient is qualified?
Prior to award of a TIA, your responsibilities for determining that the recipient is qualified are the same as those of a grants officer who is awarding a grant or cooperative agreement. Those responsibilities are described in subpart D of 32 CFR part 22. When the recipient is a consortium that is not formally incorporated, you have the additional responsibility described in § 37.515.
§ 37.515   Must I do anything additional to determine the qualification of a consortium?
(a) When the prospective recipient of a TIA is a consortium that is not formally incorporated, your determination that the recipient meets the standard at 32 CFR 22.415(a) requires that you, in consultation with legal counsel, review the management plan in the consortium's collaboration agreement. The purpose of your review is to ensure that the management plan is sound and that it adequately addresses the elements necessary for an effective working relationship among the consortium members. An effective working relationship is essential to increase the research project's chances of success.
(b) The collaboration agreement, commonly referred to as the articles of collaboration, is the document that sets out the rights and responsibilities of each consortium member. It binds the individual consortium members together, whereas the TIA binds the Government and the consortium as a group (or the Government and a consortium member on behalf of the consortium, as explained in § 37.1015). The document should discuss, among other things, the consortium's:
(1) Management structure.
(2) Method of making payments to consortium members.
(3) Means of ensuring and overseeing members' efforts on the project.
(4) Provisions for members' cost sharing contributions.
(5) Provisions for ownership and rights in intellectual property developed previously or under the agreement.
§ 37.520   What is my responsibility for determining that the total project funding is reasonable?
In cooperation with the program official, you must assess the reasonableness of the total estimated budget to perform the research that will be supported by the agreement. Additional guidance follows for:
(a) Labor. Much of the budget likely will involve direct labor and associated indirect costs, which may be represented together as a “loaded” labor rate. The program official is an essential advisor on reasonableness of the overall level of effort and its composition by labor category. You also may rely on your experience with other awards as the basis for determining reasonableness. If you have any unresolved questions, two of the ways that you might find helpful in establishing reasonableness are to:
(1) Consult the administrative agreements officers or auditors identified in § 37.505.
(2) Compare loaded labor rates of for-profit firms that do not have expenditure-based Federal procurement contracts or assistance awards with a standard or average for the particular industry. Note that the program official may have knowledge about customary levels of direct labor charges in the particular industry that is involved. You may be able to compare associated indirect charges with Government-approved indirect cost rates that exist for many nonprofit and for-profit organizations that have Federal procurement contracts or assistance awards (note the requirement in § 37.630 for a for-profit participant to use Federally approved provisional indirect cost rates, if it has them).
(b) Real property and equipment. In almost all cases, the project costs may include only depreciation or use charges for real property and equipment of for-profit participants, in accordance with § 37.685. Remember that the budget for an expenditure-based TIA may not include depreciation of a participant's property as a direct cost of the project if that participant's practice is to charge the depreciation of that type of property as an indirect cost, as many organizations do.
§ 37.525   What is my responsibility for determining the value and reasonableness of the recipient's cost sharing contribution?
You must:
(a) Determine that the recipient's cost sharing contributions meet the criteria for cost sharing and determine values for them, in accordance with §§ 37.530 through 37.555. In doing so, you must:
(1) Ensure that there are affirmative statements from any third parties identified as sources of cash contributions.
(2) Include in the award file an evaluation that documents how you determined the values of the recipient's contributions to the funding of the project.
(b) Judge that the recipient's cost sharing contribution, as a percentage of the total budget, is reasonable. To the maximum extent practicable, the recipient must provide at least half of the costs of the project, in accordance with § 37.215.
§ 37.530   What criteria do I use in deciding whether to accept a recipient's cost sharing?
You may accept any cash or in-kind contributions that meet all of the following criteria:
(a) In your judgment, they represent meaningful cost sharing that demonstrates the recipient's commitment to the success of the research project. Cash contributions clearly demonstrate commitment and they are strongly preferred over in-kind contributions.
(b) They are necessary and reasonable for accomplishment of the research project's objectives.
(c) They are costs that may be charged to the project under § 37.625 and § 37.635, as applicable to the participant making the contribution.
(d) They are verifiable from the recipient's records.
(e) They are not included as cost sharing contributions for any other Federal award.
(f) They are not paid by the Federal Government under another award, except:
(1) Costs that are authorized by Federal statute to be used for cost sharing; or
(2) Independent research and development (IR&D) costs, as described at 32 CFR 34.13(a)(5)(ii), that meet all of the criteria in paragraphs (a) through (e) of this section. IR&D is acceptable as cost sharing, even though it may be reimbursed by the Government through other awards. It is standard business practice for all for-profit firms, including commercial firms, to recover their research and development (R&D) costs (which for Federal procurement contracts is recovered as IR&D) through prices charged to their customers. Thus, the cost principles at 48 CFR part 31 allow a for-profit firm that has expenditure-based, Federal procurement contracts to recover through those procurement contracts the allocable portion of its R&D costs associated with a technology investment agreement.
§ 37.535   How do I value cost sharing related to real property or equipment?
You rarely should accept values for cost sharing contributions of real property or equipment that are in excess of depreciation or reasonable use charges, as discussed in § 37.685 for for-profit participants. You may accept the full value of a donated capital asset if the real property or equipment is to be dedicated to the project and you expect that it will have a fair market value that is less than $5,000 at the project's end. In those cases, you should value the donation at the lesser of:
(a) The value of the property as shown in the recipient's accounting records ( i.e., purchase price less accumulated depreciation); or
(b) The current fair market value. You may accept the use of any reasonable basis for determining the fair market value of the property. If there is a justification to do so, you may accept the current fair market value even if it exceeds the value in the recipient's records.
§ 37.540   May I accept fully depreciated real property or equipment as cost sharing?
You should limit the value of any contribution of a fully depreciated asset to a reasonable use charge. In determining what is reasonable, you must consider:
(a) The original cost of the asset;
(b) Its estimated remaining useful life at the time of your negotiations;
(c) The effect of any increased maintenance charges or decreased performance due to age; and
(d) The amount of depreciation that the participant previously charged to Federal awards.
§ 37.545   May I accept costs of prior research as cost sharing?
No, you may not count any participant's costs of prior research as a cost sharing contribution. Only the additional resources that the recipient will provide to carry out the current project (which may include pre-award costs for the current project, as described in § 37.830) are to be counted.
§ 37.550   May I accept intellectual property as cost sharing?
(a) In most instances, you should not count costs of patents and other intellectual property ( e.g., copyrighted material, including software) as cost sharing, because:
(1) It is difficult to assign values to these intangible contributions;
(2) Their value usually is a manifestation of prior research costs, which are not allowed as cost share under § 37.545; and
(3) Contributions of intellectual property rights generally do not represent the same cost of lost opportunity to a recipient as contributions of cash or tangible assets. The purpose of cost share is to ensure that the recipient incurs real risk that gives it a vested interest in the project's success.
(b) You may include costs associated with intellectual property if the costs are based on sound estimates of market value of the contribution. For example, a for-profit firm may offer the use of commercially available software for which there is an established license fee for use of the product. The costs of the development of the software would not be a reasonable basis for valuing its use.
§ 37.555   How do I value a recipient's other contributions?
For types of participant contributions other than those addressed in §§ 37.535 through 37.550, the general rule is that you are to value each contribution consistently with the cost principles or standards in § 37.625 and § 37.635 that apply to the participant making the contribution. When valuing services and property donated by parties other than the participants, you may use as guidance the provisions of 32 CFR 34.13(b)(2) through (5).
§ 37.560   Must I be able to estimate project expenditures precisely in order to justify use of a fixed-support TIA?
(a) To use a fixed-support TIA, rather than an expenditure-based TIA, you must have confidence in your estimate of the expenditures required to achieve well-defined outcomes. Therefore, you must work carefully with program officials to select outcomes that, when the recipient achieves them, are reliable indicators of the amount of effort the recipient expended. However, your estimate of the required expenditures need not be a precise dollar amount, as illustrated by the example in paragraph (b) of this section, if:
(1) The recipient is contributing a substantial share of the costs of achieving the outcomes, which must meet the criteria in § 37.305(a); and
(2) You are confident that the costs of achieving the outcomes will be at least a minimum amount that you can specify and the recipient is willing to accept the possibility that its cost sharing percentage ultimately will be higher if the costs exceed that minimum amount.
(b) To illustrate the approach, consider a project for which you are confident that the recipient will have to expend at least $800,000 to achieve the specified outcomes. You must determine, in conjunction with program officials, the minimum level of recipient cost sharing that you want to negotiate, based on the circumstances, to demonstrate the recipient's commitment to the success of the project. For purposes of this illustration, let that minimum recipient cost sharing be 40% of the total project costs. In that case, the Federal share should be no more than 60% and you could set a fixed level of Federal support at $480,000 (60% of $800,000). With that fixed level of Federal support, the recipient would be responsible for the balance of the costs needed to complete the project.
(c) Note, however, that the level of recipient cost sharing you negotiate is to be based solely on the level needed to demonstrate the recipient's commitment. You may not use a shortage of Federal Government funding for the program as a reason to try to persuade a recipient to accept a fixed-support TIA, rather than an expenditure-based instrument, or to accept responsibility for a greater share of the total project costs than it otherwise is willing to offer. If you lack sufficient funding to provide an appropriate Federal Government share for the entire project, you instead should rescope the effort covered by the agreement to match the available funding.
§ 37.565   May I use a hybrid instrument that provides fixed support for only a portion of a project?
Yes, for a research project that is to be carried out by a number of participants, you may award a TIA that provides for some participants to perform under fixed-support arrangements and others to perform under expenditure-based arrangements. This approach may be useful, for example, if a commercial firm that is a participant will not accept an agreement with all of the post-award requirements of an expenditure-based award. Before using a fixed-support arrangement for that firm's portion of the project, you must judge that it meets the criteria in § 37.305.
§ 37.570   What must I do if a CAS-covered participant accounts differently for its own and the Federal Government shares of project costs?
(a) If a participant has Federal procurement contracts that are subject to the Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) in part 30 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the associated FAR Appendix (48 CFR part 30 and 48 CFR 9903.201-1, respectively), you must alert the participant during the pre-award negotiations to the potential for a CAS violation, as well as the cognizant administrative contracting officer (ACO) for the participant's procurement contracts, if you learn that the participant plans to account differently for its own share and the Federal Government's share of project costs under the TIA. This may arise, for example, if a for-profit firm or other organization subject to the FAR cost principles in 48 CFR parts 31 and 231 proposes to charge:
(1) Its share of project costs as independent research and development (IR&D) costs to enable recovery of the costs through Federal Government procurement contracts, as allowed under the FAR cost principles; and
(2) The Federal Government's share to the project, rather than as IR&D costs.
(b) The reason for alerting the participant and the ACO is that the inconsistent charging of the two shares could cause a noncompliance with Cost Accounting Standard (CAS) 402. Noncompliance with CAS 402 is a potential issue only for a participant that has CAS-covered Federal procurement contracts (note that CAS requirements do not apply to a for-profit participant's TIAs).
(c) For for-profit participants with CAS-covered procurement contracts, the cognizant ACO in most cases will be an individual within the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). You can identify a cognizant ACO at the DCMA by querying the contract administration team locator that matches contractors with their ACOs (currently on the World Wide Web at http://alerts.dcmdw.dcma.mil/support, a site that also can be accessed through the DCMA home page at http://www.dcma.mil).
§ 37.575   What are my responsibilities for determining milestone payment amounts?
(a) If you select the milestone payment method ( see § 37.805), you must assess the reasonableness of the estimated amount for reaching each milestone. This assessment enables you to set the amount of each milestone payment to approximate the Federal share of the anticipated resource needs for carrying out that phase of the research effort.
(b) The Federal share at each milestone need not be the same as the Federal share of the total project. For example, you might deliberately set payment amounts with a larger Federal share for early milestones if a project involves a start-up company with limited resources.
(c) For an expenditure-based TIA, if you have minimum percentages that you want the recipient's cost sharing to be at the milestones, you should indicate those percentages in the agreement or in separate instructions to the post-award administrative agreements officer. That will help the administrative agreements officer decide when a project's expenditures have fallen too far below the original projections, requiring adjustments of future milestone payment amounts ( see § 37.1105(c)).
(d) For fixed-support TIAs, the milestone payments should be associated with the well-defined, observable and verifiable technical outcomes ( e.g., demonstrations, tests, or data analysis) that you establish for the project in accordance with §§ 37.305(a) and 37.560(a).
§ 37.580   What is recovery of funds and when should I consider including it in my TIA?
(a) Recovery of funds refers to the use of the authority in 10 U.S.C. 2371 to include a provision in certain types of agreements, including TIAs, that require a recipient to make payments to the Department of Defense or another Federal agency as a condition of the agreement. Recovery of funds is a good tool in the right circumstances, at the discretion of the agreements officer and the awarding organization, but its purpose is not to augment program budgets. It may be used to recover funds provided to a recipient through a TIA or another Federal procurement or assistance instrument, and the recovery should not exceed the amounts provided. Recovery of funds is distinct from program income, as described in § 37.835.
(b) In accordance with 10 U.S.C. 2371, as implemented by policy guidance from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), the payment amounts may be credited to an existing account of the Department of Defense and used for the same program purposes as other funds in that account.
(c) Before you use the authority to include a provision for recovery of funds, note that 10 U.S.C. 2371 requires you to judge that it would not be feasible or appropriate to use for the research project a standard grant or cooperative agreement (in this instance, a “standard cooperative agreement” means a cooperative agreement without a provision for recovery of funds). You satisfy that 10 U.S.C. 2371 requirement when you judge that execution of the research project warrants inclusion of a provision for recovery of funds.
§ 37.600   Which administrative matters are covered in this subpart?
This subpart addresses “systemic” administrative matters that place requirements on the operation of a participant's financial management, property management, or purchasing system. Each participant's systems are organization-wide and do not vary with each agreement. Therefore, all TIAs should address systemic requirements in a uniform way for each type of participant organization.
§ 37.605   What is the general policy on participants' financial, property, and purchasing systems?
The general policy for expenditure-based TIAs is to avoid requirements that would force participants to use different financial management, property management, and purchasing systems than they currently use for:
(a) Expenditure-based Federal procurement contracts and assistance awards in general, if they receive them; or
(b) Commercial business, if they have no expenditure-based Federal procurement contracts and assistance awards.
§ 37.610   Must I tell participants what requirements they are to flow down for subrecipients' systems?
If it is an expenditure-based award, your TIA must require participants to flow down the same financial management, property management, and purchasing systems requirements to a subrecipient that would apply if the subrecipient were a participant. For example, a for-profit participant would flow down to a university subrecipient the requirements that apply to a university participant. Note that this policy applies to subawards for substantive performance of portions of the research project supported by the TIA, and not to participants' purchases of goods or services needed to carry out the research.
§ 37.615   What standards do I include for financial systems of for-profit firms?
(a) To avoid causing needless changes in participants' financial management systems, your expenditure-based TIAs will make for-profit participants that currently perform under other expenditure-based Federal procurement contracts or assistance awards subject to the same standards for financial management systems that apply to those other awards. Therefore, if a for-profit participant has expenditure-based DoD assistance awards other than TIAs, your TIAs are to apply the standards in 32 CFR 34.11. You may grant an exception and allow a for-profit participant that has other expenditure-based Federal Government awards to use an alternative set of standards that meets the minimum criteria in paragraph (b) of this section, if there is a compelling programmatic or business reason to do so. For each case in which you grant an exception, you must document the reason in the award file.
(b) For an expenditure-based TIA, you are to allow and encourage each for-profit participant that does not currently perform under expenditure-based Federal procurement contracts or assistance awards (other than TIAs) to use its existing financial management system as long as the system, as a minimum:
(1) Complies with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
(2) Effectively controls all project funds, including Federal funds and any required cost share. The system must have complete, accurate, and current records that document the sources of funds and the purposes for which they are disbursed. It also must have procedures for ensuring that project funds are used only for purposes permitted by the agreement ( see § 37.625).
(3) Includes, if advance payments are authorized under § 37.805, procedures to minimize the time elapsing between the payment of funds by the Government and the firm's disbursement of the funds for program purposes.
§ 37.620   What financial management standards do I include for participants that are nonprofit?
So as not to force system changes for any State, local government, institution of higher education, or other nonprofit organization, your expenditure-based TIA's requirements for the financial management system of any nonprofit participant are the same as those that apply to the participant's other Federal assistance awards.
§ 37.625   What cost principles or standards do I require for for-profit participants?
(a) So as not to require any firm to needlessly change its cost-accounting system, your expenditure-based TIAs are to apply the Government cost principles in 48 CFR parts 31 and 231 to for-profit participants that currently perform under expenditure-based Federal procurement contracts or assistance awards (other than TIAs) and therefore have existing systems for identifying allowable costs under those principles. If there are programmatic or business reasons to do otherwise, you may grant an exception from this requirement and use alternative standards as long as the alternative satisfies the conditions described in paragraph (b) of this section; if you do so, you must document the reasons in your award file.
(b) For other for-profit participants, you may establish alternative standards in the agreement as long as that alternative provides, as a minimum, that Federal funds and funds counted as recipients' cost sharing will be used only for costs that:
(1) A reasonable and prudent person would incur in carrying out the research project contemplated by the agreement. Generally, elements of cost that appropriately are charged are those identified with research and development activities under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (see Statement of Financial Accounting Standards Number 2, “Accounting for Research and Development Costs,” October 1974 1 ). Moreover, costs must be allocated to DoD and other projects in accordance with the relative benefits the projects receive. Costs charged to DoD projects must be given consistent treatment with costs allocated to the participants' other research and development activities ( e.g., activities supported by the participants themselves or by non-Federal sponsors).
1 Copies may be obtained from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), 401 Merritt 7, P.O. Box 5116, Norwalk, CT 06856-5116. Information about ordering also may be found at the Internet site http://www.fasb.org or by telephoning the FASB at (800) 748-0659.
(2) Are consistent with the purposes stated in the governing Congressional authorizations and appropriations. You are responsible for ensuring that provisions in the award document address any requirements that result from authorizations and appropriations.
§ 37.630   Must I require a for-profit firm to use Federally approved indirect cost rates?
In accordance with the general policy in § 37.605, you must require a for-profit participant that has Federally approved indirect cost rates for its Federal procurement contracts to use those rates to accumulate and report costs under an expenditure-based TIA. This includes both provisional and final rates that are approved up until the time that the TIA is closed out. You may grant an exception from this requirement if there are programmatic or business reasons to do otherwise ( e.g., the participant offers you a lower rate). If you grant an exception, the participant must accumulate and report the costs using an accounting system and practices that it uses for other customers ( e.g., its commercial customers). Also, you must document the reason for the exception in your award file.
§ 37.635   What cost principles do I require a nonprofit participant to use?
So as not to force financial system changes for any nonprofit participant, your expenditure-based TIA will provide that costs to be charged to the research project by any nonprofit participant must be determined to be allowable in accordance with:
(a) Subpart E of OMB guidance in 2 CFR part 200, if the participant is a State, local government, Indian tribe, institution of higher education, or nonprofit organization. In conformance with 2 CFR 200.401(c) of that OMB guidance, a nonprofit organization listed in appendix VIII to 2 CFR part 200 is subject to the cost principles in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (48 CFR subpart 31.2) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (48 CFR subpart 231.2).
(b) The cost principles identified in appendix IX to the OMB guidance in 2 CFR part 200 (see 45 CFR part 75), if the participant is a hospital.
§ 37.640   Must I include a provision for audits of for-profit participants?
If your TIA is an expenditure-based award, you must include in it an audit provision that addresses, for each for-profit participant:
(a) Whether the for-profit participant must have periodic audits, in addition to any award-specific audits, as described in § 37.645. Note that the DCAA or the Office of the Inspector General, DoD (OIG, DoD), can provide advice on the types and scope of audits that may be needed in various circumstances.
(b) Whether the DCAA or an independent public accountant (IPA) will perform required audits, as discussed in § 37.650.
(c) How frequently any periodic audits are to be performed, addressed in § 37.655.
(d) Other matters described in § 37.660, such as audit coverage, allowability of audit costs, auditing standards, and remedies for noncompliance.
§ 37.645   Must I require periodic audits, as well as award-specific audits, of for-profit participants?
You need to consider requirements for both periodic audits and award-specific audits (as defined in § 37.1325 and § 37.1235, respectively). The way that your expenditure-based TIA addresses the two types of audits will vary, depending upon the type of for-profit participant.
(a) For for-profit participants that are audited by the DCAA or other Federal auditors, as described in §§ 37.650(b) and 37.655, you need not add specific requirements for periodic audits because the Federal audits should be sufficient to address whatever may be needed. Your inclusion in the TIA of the standard access-to-records provision for those for-profit participants, as discussed in § 37.915(a), gives the necessary access in the event that you or administrative agreements officers later need to request audits to address award-specific issues that arise.
(b) For each other for-profit participant, you:
(1) Should require that the participant have an independent auditor ( i.e., the DCAA or an independent public accountant) conduct periodic audits of its systems if it expends $750,000 or more per year in TIAs and other Federal assistance awards. A prime reason for including this requirement is that the Federal Government, for an expenditure-based award, necessarily relies on amounts reported by the participant's systems when it sets payment amounts or adjusts performance outcomes. The periodic audit provides some assurance that the reported amounts are reliable.
(2) Must ensure that the award provides an independent auditor the access needed for award-specific audits, to be performed at the request of the cognizant administrative agreements officer if issues arise that require audit support. However, consistent with the government-wide policies on single audits that apply to nonprofit participants (see § 37.665), you should rely on periodic audits to the maximum extent possible to resolve any award-specific issues.
§ 37.650   Who must I identify as the auditor for a for-profit participant?
The auditor that you will identify in the expenditure-based TIA to perform periodic and award-specific audits of a for-profit participant depends on the circumstances, as follows:
(a) You may provide that an IPA will be the auditor for a for-profit participant that does not meet the criteria in paragraph (b) of this section, but only if the participant will not agree to give the DCAA access to the necessary books and records for audit purposes. Note that the allocable portion of the costs of the IPA's audit may be reimbursable under the TIA, as described in § 37.660(b). The IPA should be the one that the participant uses to perform other audits ( e.g., of its financial statement), to minimize added burdens and costs. You must document in the award file the participant's unwillingness to give the DCAA access. The DCAA is to be the auditor if the participant grants the necessary access.
(b) Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, you must identify the DCAA as the auditor for any for-profit participant that is subject to DCAA audits because it is currently performing under a Federal award that is subject to the:
(1) Cost principles in 48 CFR part 31 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and 48 CFR part 231 of the Defense FAR Supplement; or
(2) Cost Accounting Standards in 48 CFR chapter 99.
(c) If there are programmatic or business reasons that justify the use of an auditor other than the DCAA for a for-profit participant that meets the criteria in paragraph (b) of this section, you may provide that an IPA will be the auditor for that participant if you obtain prior approval from the Office of the Inspector General, DoD. You must submit requests for prior approval to the Assistant Inspector General (Auditing), 4800 Mark Center Drive, Alexandria, VA 22350-1500. Your request must include the name and address of the business unit(s) for which IPAs will be used. It also must explain why you judge that the participant will not give the DCAA the necessary access to records for audit purposes ( e.g., you may submit a statement to that effect from the participant). The OIG, DoD, will respond within five working days of receiving the request for prior approval, either by notifying you of the decision (approval or disapproval) or giving you a date by which they will notify you of the decision.
§ 37.655   Must I specify the frequency of IPAs' periodic audits of for-profit participants?
If your expenditure-based TIA provides for periodic audits of a for-profit participant by an IPA, you must specify the frequency for those audits. You should consider having an audit performed during the first year of the award, when the participant has its IPA do its next financial statement audit, unless the participant already had a systems audit due to other Federal awards within the past two years. The frequency thereafter may vary depending upon the dollars the participant is expending annually under the award, but it is not unreasonable to require an updated audit every two to three years to reverify that the participant's systems are reliable (the audit then would cover the two or three-year period between audits). The DCAA is a source of advice on audit frequencies if your TIA provides for audits by IPAs.
§ 37.660   What else must I specify concerning audits of for-profit participants by IPAs?
If your expenditure-based TIA provides for audits of a for-profit participant by an IPA, you also must specify:
(a) What periodic audits are to cover. It is important that you specify audit coverage that is only as broad as needed to provide reasonable assurance of the participant's compliance with award terms that have a direct and material effect on the research project. Appendix C to this part provides guidance to for-profit participants and their IPAs that you may use for this purpose. The DCAA and the OIG, DoD, also can provide advice to help you set appropriate limits on audit objectives and scope.
(b) Who will pay for periodic and award-specific audits. The allocable portion of the costs of any audits by IPAs may be reimbursable under the TIA. The costs may be direct charges or allocated indirect costs, consistent with the participant's accounting system and practices.
(c) The auditing standards that the IPA will use. Unless you receive prior approval from the OIG, DoD, to do otherwise, you must provide that the IPA will perform the audits in accordance with the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. 2
2 The electronic document may be accessed at www.gao.gov. Printed copies may be purchased from the U.S. Government Printing Office; for ordering information, call (202) 512-1800 or access the Internet site at www.gpo.gov.
(d) The available remedies for noncompliance. The agreement must provide that the participant may not charge costs to the award for any audit that the agreements officer, with the advice of the OIG, DoD, determines was not performed in accordance with the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards or other terms of the agreement. It also must provide that the Government has the right to require the participant to have the IPA take corrective action and, if corrective action is not taken, that the agreements officer has recourse to any of the remedies for noncompliance identified in 32 CFR 34.52(a).
(e) The remedy if it later is found that the participant, at the time it entered into the TIA, was performing on a procurement contract or other Federal award subject to the Cost Accounting Standards at 48 CFR part 30 and the cost principles at 48 CFR part 31. Unless the OIG, DoD, approves an exception (see § 37.650(c)), the TIA's terms must provide that the DCAA will perform the audits for the agreement if it later is found that the participant, at the time the TIA was awarded, was performing under awards described in § 37.650(b) that gave the DCAA audit access to the participant's books and records.
(f) Where the IPA is to send audit reports. The agreement must provide that the IPA is to submit audit reports to the administrative agreements officer and the OIG, DoD. It also must require that the IPA report instances of fraud directly to the OIG, DoD.
(g) The retention period for the IPA's working papers. You must specify that the IPA is to retain working papers for a period of at least three years after the final payment, unless the working papers relate to an audit whose findings are not fully resolved within that period or to an unresolved claim or dispute (in which case, the IPA must keep the working papers until the matter is resolved and final action taken).
(h) Who will have access to the IPA's working papers. The agreement must provide for Government access to working papers.
§ 37.665   Must I require nonprofit participants to have periodic audits?
Yes, expenditure-based TIAs are assistance instruments subject to the Single Audit Act (31 U.S.C. 7501-7507), so nonprofit participants are subject to their usual requirements under that Act, as implemented by subpart F of 2 CFR part 200. Specifically, the requirements are the same as those in subpart E of 2 CFR part 1128 for grants and cooperative agreements to institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, States, local governments, and Indian tribes. Note that those requirements also apply to Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and other Government-owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) facilities administered by nonprofit organizations, because nonprofit FFRDCs and GOCOs are subject to the Single Audit Act.
§ 37.670   Must I require participants to flow down audit requirements to subrecipients?
(a) Yes, in accordance with § 37.610, your expenditure-based TIA must require participants to flow down the same audit requirements to a subrecipient that would apply if the subrecipient were a participant.
(b) For example, a for-profit participant that is audited by the DCAA:
(1) Would flow down to a university subrecipient the Single Audit Act requirements that apply to a university participant.
(2) Could enter into a subaward allowing a for-profit participant, under the circumstances described in § 37.650(a), to use an IPA to do its audits.
(c) This policy applies to subawards for substantive performance of portions of the research project supported by the TIA, and not to participants' purchases of goods or services needed to carry out the research.
§ 37.685   May I allow for-profit firms to purchase real property and equipment with project funds?
(a) With the two exceptions described in paragraph (b) of this section, you must require a for-profit firm to purchase real property or equipment with its own funds that are separate from the research project. You should allow the firm to charge to an expenditure-based TIA only depreciation or use charges for real property or equipment (and your cost estimate for a fixed-support TIA only would include those costs). Note that the firm must charge depreciation consistently with its usual accounting practice. Many firms treat depreciation as an indirect cost. Any firm that usually charges depreciation indirectly for a particular type of property must not charge depreciation for that property as a direct cost to the TIA.
(b) In two situations, you may grant an exception and allow a for-profit firm to use project funds, which includes both the Federal Government and recipient shares, to purchase real property or equipment ( i.e., to charge to the project the full acquisition cost of the property). The two circumstances, which should be infrequent for equipment and extremely rare for real property, are those in which you either:
(1) Judge that the real property or equipment will be dedicated to the project and have a current fair market value that is less than $5,000 by the time the project ends; or
(2) Give prior approval for the firm to include the full acquisition cost of the real property or equipment as part of the cost of the project (see § 37.535).
(c) If you grant an exception in either of the circumstances described in paragraphs (b)(1) and (2) of this section, you must make the real property or equipment subject to the property management standards in 32 CFR 34.21(b) through (d). As provided in those standards, the title to the real property or equipment will vest conditionally in the for-profit firm upon acquisition. Your TIA, whether it is a fixed-support or expenditure-based award, must specify that any item of equipment that has a fair market value of $5,000 or more at the conclusion of the project also will be subject to the disposition process in 32 CFR 34.21(e), whereby the Federal Government will recover its interest in the property at that time.
§ 37.690   How are nonprofit participants to manage real property and equipment?
For nonprofit participants, your TIA's requirements for vesting of title, use, management, and disposition of real property or equipment acquired under the award are the same as those that apply to the participant's other Federal assistance awards.
§ 37.695   What are the requirements for Federally owned property?
If you provide Federally owned property to any participant for the performance of research under a TIA, you must require that participant to account for, use, and dispose of the property in accordance with:
(a) 32 CFR 34.22, if the participant is a for-profit firm.
(b) The requirements that apply to the participant's other Federal awards, if it is an entity other than a for-profit firm. If the other Federal awards of a participant that is a GOCO or FFRDC administered by a nonprofit organization are procurement contracts, it is appropriate for you to specify the same property standards that apply to those Federal procurement contracts.
§ 37.700   What are the requirements for supplies?
Your expenditure-based TIA's provisions should permit participants to use their existing procedures to account for and manage supplies. A fixed-support TIA should not include requirements to account for or manage supplies.
§ 37.705   What standards do I include for purchasing systems of for-profit firms?
(a) If your TIA is an expenditure-based award, it should require for-profit participants that currently perform under DoD assistance instruments subject to the purchasing standards in 32 CFR 34.31 to use the same requirements for TIAs, unless there are programmatic or business reasons to do otherwise (in which case you must document the reasons in the award file).
(b) You should allow other for-profit participants under expenditure-based TIAs to use their existing purchasing systems, as long as they flow down the applicable requirements in Federal statutes, Executive orders or Governmentwide regulations (see appendix E to this part for a list of those requirements).
(c) If your TIA is a fixed-support award, you need only require for-profit participants to flow down the requirements listed in appendix F to this part.
§ 37.710   What standards do I include for purchasing systems of nonprofit organizations?
(a) So as not to force system changes for any nonprofit participant, your expenditure-based TIA will provide that each nonprofit participant's purchasing system comply with standards that conform as much as practicable with requirements that apply to the participant's other Federal awards.
(b) If your TIA is a fixed-support award, you need only require nonprofit participants to flow down the requirements listed in appendix E to this part.
§ 37.800   Which administrative matters are covered in this subpart?
This subpart addresses “non-systemic” administrative matters that do not impose organization-wide requirements on a participant's financial management, property management, or purchasing system. Because an organization does not have to redesign its systems to accommodate award-to-award variations in these requirements, a TIA that you award may differ from other TIAs in the non-systemic requirements that it specifies for a given participant, based on the circumstances of the particular research project. To eliminate needless administrative complexity, you should handle some non-systemic requirements, such as the payment method, in a uniform way for the agreement as a whole.
§ 37.805   If I am awarding a TIA, what payment methods may I specify?
Your TIA may provide for:
(a) Reimbursement, as described in 32 CFR 34.12(a)(1), if it is an expenditure-based award.
(b) Advance payments, as described in 32 CFR 34.12(a)(2), subject to the conditions in 32 CFR 34.12(b)(2)(i) through (iii).
(c) Payments based on payable milestones. These are payments made according to a schedule that is based on predetermined measures of technical progress or other payable milestones. This approach relies upon the fact that, as research progresses throughout the term of the agreement, observable activity will be taking place. The recipient is paid upon the accomplishment of the predetermined measure of progress. Fixed-support TIAs must use this payment method and each measure of progress appropriately would be one of the well-defined outcomes that you identify in the agreement (this does not preclude use of an initial advance payment, if there is no alternative to meeting immediate cash needs). There are cash management considerations when this payment method is used as a means of financing for an expenditure-based TIA ( see § 37.575 and § 37.1105).
§ 37.810   What should my TIA's provisions specify for the method and frequency of recipients' payment requests?
The procedure and frequency for payment requests depend upon the payment method, as follows:
(a) For either reimbursements or advance payments, your TIA must allow recipients to submit requests for payment at least monthly. You may authorize the recipients to use the forms or formats described in 32 CFR 34.12(d).
(b) If the payments are based on payable milestones, the recipient will submit a report or other evidence of accomplishment to the program official at the completion of each predetermined activity. The agreement administrator may approve payment to the recipient after receiving validation from the program manager that the milestone was successfully reached.
§ 37.815   May the Government withhold payments?
Your TIA must provide that the administrative agreements officer may withhold payments in the circumstances described in 32 CFR 34.12(g), but not otherwise.
§ 37.820   Must I require a recipient to return interest on advance payments?
If your expenditure-based TIA provides for either advance payments or payable milestones, the agreement must require the recipient to:
(a) Maintain in an interest-bearing account any advance payments or milestone payment amounts received in advance of needs to disburse the funds for program purposes unless:
(1) The recipient receives less than $120,000 in Federal grants, cooperative agreements, and TIAs per year;
(2) The best reasonably available interest-bearing account would not be expected to earn interest in excess of $1,000 per year on the advance or milestone payments; or
(3) The depository would require an average or minimum balance so high that it would not be feasible within the expected Federal and non-Federal cash resources for the project.
(b) Remit annually the interest earned to the administrative agreements officer.
§ 37.825   Must I require the recipient to obtain prior approval from the Government for changes in plans?
If it is an expenditure-based award, your agreement must require the recipient to obtain the agreement administrator's prior approval if there is to be a change in plans that results in a need for additional Federal funding (this is unnecessary for a fixed-support TIA because the recipient is responsible for additional costs of achieving the outcomes). Other than that, the program official's substantial involvement in the project should ensure that the Government has advance notice of changes in plans.
§ 37.830   May I let a recipient charge pre-award costs to the agreement?
Pre-award costs, as long as they are otherwise allowable costs of the project, may be charged to an expenditure-based TIA only with the specific approval of the agreements officer. All pre-award costs are incurred at the recipient's risk ( i.e., no DoD Component is obligated to reimburse the costs if for any reason the recipient does not receive an award or if the award is less than anticipated and inadequate to cover the costs).
§ 37.835   What requirements do I include for program income?
Your TIA should apply the standards of 32 CFR 34.14 for program income that may be generated. Note the need to specify whether the recipient is to have any obligation to the Federal Government with respect to program income generated after the end of the project period (the period, as established in the award document, during which Federal support is provided). Doing so is especially important if the TIA includes a provision for the recipient to return any amounts to the Federal Government (see § 37.580).
§ 37.840   What general approach should I take in negotiating data and patent rights?
(a) You should confer with program officials and legal counsel to develop an overall strategy for intellectual property that takes into account inventions and data that may result from the project and future needs the Government may have for rights in them. The strategy should take into account any intellectual property the Government is furnishing and any pre-existing proprietary information that the recipient is furnishing, as well as data and inventions that may be generated under the award (recognizing that new data and inventions may be less valuable without pre-existing information). All pre-existing intellectual property, both the Government's and the recipient's, should be marked to give notice of its status.
(b) Because TIAs entail substantial cost sharing by recipients, you must use discretion in negotiating Government rights to data and patentable inventions resulting from research under the agreements. The considerations in §§ 37.845 through 37.875 are intended to serve as guidelines, within which you necessarily have considerable latitude to negotiate provisions appropriate to a wide variety of circumstances that may arise. Your goal should be a good balance between DoD interests in:
(1) Gaining access to the best technologies for defense needs, including technologies available in the commercial marketplace, and promoting commercialization of technologies resulting from the research. Either of these interests may be impeded if you negotiate excessive rights for the Government. One objective of TIAs is to help incorporate defense requirements into the development of what ultimately will be commercially available technologies, an objective that is best served by reducing barriers to commercial firms' participation in the research. In that way, the commercial technology and industrial base can be a source of readily available, reliable, and affordable components, subsystems, computer software, and other technological products and manufacturing processes for military systems.
(2) Providing adequate protection of the Government's investment, which may be weakened if the Government's rights are inadequate. You should consider whether the Government may require access to data or inventions for Governmental purposes, such as a need to develop defense-unique products or processes that the commercial marketplace likely will not address.
§ 37.845   What data rights should I obtain?
(a) You should seek to obtain what you, with the advice of legal counsel, judge is needed to ensure future Government use of technology that emerges from the research, as long as doing so is consistent with the balance between DoD interests described in § 37.840(b). You should consider data in which you wish to obtain license rights and data that you may wish to be delivered; since TIAs are assistance instruments rather than acquisition instruments, however, it is not expected that data would be delivered in most cases. What generally is needed is an irrevocable, world-wide license for the Government to use, modify, reproduce, release, or disclose for Governmental purposes the data that are generated under TIAs (including any data, such as computer software, in which a recipient may obtain a copyright). A Governmental purpose is any activity in which the United States Government participates, but a license for Governmental purposes does not include the right to use, or have or permit others to use, modify, reproduce, release, or disclose data for commercial purposes.
(b) You may negotiate licenses of different scope than described in paragraph (a) of this section when necessary to accomplish program objectives or to protect the Government's interests. Consult with legal counsel before negotiating a license of different scope.
(c) In negotiating data rights, you should consider the rights in background data that are necessary to fully utilize technology that is expected to result from the TIA, in the event the recipient does not commercialize the technology or chooses to protect any invention as a trade secret rather than by a patent. If a recipient intends to protect any invention as a trade secret, you should consult with your intellectual property counsel before deciding what information related to the invention the award should require the recipient to report.
§ 37.850   Should I require recipients to mark data?
To protect the recipient's interests in data, your TIA should require the recipient to mark any particular data that it wishes to protect from disclosure with a legend identifying the data as licensed data subject to use, release, or disclosure restrictions.
§ 37.855   How should I handle protected data?
Prior to releasing or disclosing data marked with a restrictive legend (as described in § 37.850) to third parties, you should require those parties to agree in writing that they will:
(a) Use the data only for governmental purposes; and
(b) Not release or disclose the data without the permission of the licensor ( i.e., the recipient).
§ 37.860   What rights should I obtain for inventions?
(a) You should negotiate rights in inventions that represent a good balance between the Government's interests ( see § 37.840(b)) and the recipient's interests. As explained in appendix B to this part:
(1) You have the flexibility to negotiate patent rights provisions that vary from what the Bayh-Dole statute (Chapter 18 of Title 35, U.S.C.) requires in many situations. You have that flexibility because TIAs include not only cooperative agreements, but also assistance transactions other than grants or cooperative agreements.
(2) Your TIA becomes an assistance instrument other than a grant or cooperative agreement if its patent rights provision varies from what Bayh-Dole requires in your situation. However, you need not consider that difference in the type of transaction until the agreement is finalized, and it should not affect the provision you negotiate.
(b) As long as it is consistent with the balance between DoD interests described in § 37.840(b) and the recipient's interests, you should seek to obtain for the Government, when an invention is conceived or first actually reduced to practice under a TIA, a nonexclusive, nontransferrable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice the invention, or to have it practiced, for or on behalf of the United States throughout the world. The license is for Governmental purposes, and does not include the right to practice the invention for commercial purposes.
(c) To provide for the license described in paragraph (b) of this section, your TIA generally would include the patent-rights clause that 37 CFR 401.14 specifies to implement the Bayh-Dole statute's requirements. Note that:
(1) The clause is designed specifically for grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements awarded to small businesses and nonprofit organizations, the types of funding instruments and recipients to which the entire Bayh-Dole statute applies. As explained in appendix B to this part, only two Bayh-Dole requirements (in 35 U.S.C. sections 202(c)(4) and 203) apply to cooperative agreements with other performers, by virtue of an amendment to Bayh-Dole at 35 U.S.C. 210(c).
(2) You may use the same clause, suitably modified, in cooperative agreements with performers other than small businesses and nonprofit organizations. Doing so is consistent with a 1983 Presidential memorandum that calls for giving other performers rights in inventions from Federally supported research that are at least as great as the rights that Bayh-Dole gives to small businesses and nonprofit organizations ( see appendix B to this part for details). That Presidential memorandum is incorporated by reference in Executive Order 12591 (52 FR 13414, 3 CFR, 1987 Comp., p. 220), as amended by Executive Order 12618 (52 FR 48661, 3 CFR, 1987 Comp., p. 262).
(3) The clause provides for flow-down of Bayh-Dole patent-rights provisions to subawards with small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
(4) There are provisions in 37 CFR part 401 stating when you must include the clause (37 CFR 401.3) and, in cases when it is required, how you may modify and tailor it (37 CFR 401.5).
(d) You may negotiate Government rights of a different scope than the standard patent-rights provision described in paragraph (c) of this section when necessary to accomplish program objectives and foster the Government's interests. If you do so:
(1) With the help of the program manager and legal counsel, you must decide what best represents a reasonable arrangement considering the circumstances, including past investments, contributions under the current TIA, and potential commercial markets. Taking past investments as an example, you should consider whether the Government or the recipient has contributed more substantially to the prior research and development that provides the foundation for the planned effort. If the predominant past contributor to the particular technology has been:
(i) The Government, then the TIA's patent-rights provision should be at or close to the standard Bayh-Dole provision.
(ii) The recipient, then a less restrictive patent provision may be appropriate, to allow the recipient to benefit more directly from its investments.
(2) You should keep in mind that obtaining a nonexclusive license at the time of award, as described in paragraph (b) of this section, is valuable if the Government later requires access to inventions to enable development of defense-unique products or processes that the commercial marketplace is not addressing. If you do not obtain a license at the time of award, you should consider alternative approaches to ensure access, such as negotiating a priced option for obtaining nonexclusive licenses in the future to inventions that are conceived or reduced to practice under the TIA.
(3) You also may consider whether you want to provide additional flexibility by giving the recipient more time than the standard patent-rights provision does to:
(i) Notify the Government of an invention, from the time the inventor discloses it within the for-profit firm.
(ii) Inform the Government whether it intends to take title to the invention.
(iii) Commercialize the invention, before the Government license rights in the invention become effective.
§ 37.865   Should my patent provision include march-in rights?
Your TIA's patent rights provision should include the Bayh-Dole march-in rights clause at paragraph (j)(1) of 37 CFR 401.14, or an equivalent clause, concerning actions that the Government may take to obtain the right to use subject inventions, if the recipient fails to take effective steps to achieve practical application of the subject inventions within a reasonable time. The march-in provision may be modified to best meet the needs of the program. However, only infrequently should the march-in provision be entirely removed ( e.g., you may wish to do so if a recipient is providing most of the funding for a research project, with the Government providing a much smaller share).
§ 37.870   Should I require recipients to mark documents related to inventions?
To protect the recipient's interest in inventions, your TIA should require the recipient to mark documents disclosing inventions it desires to protect by obtaining a patent. The recipient should mark the documents with a legend identifying them as intellectual property subject to public release or public disclosure restrictions, as provided in 35 U.S.C. 205.
§ 37.875   Should my TIA include a provision concerning foreign access to technology?
(a) Consistent with the objective of enhancing the national security by increasing DoD reliance on the U.S. commercial technology and industrial bases, you must include a provision in the TIA that addresses foreign access to technology developed under the TIA.
(b) The provision must provide, as a minimum, that any transfer of the:
(1) Technology must be consistent with the U.S. export laws, regulations and policies ( e.g., the International Traffic in Arms Regulation at chapter I, subchapter M, title 22 of the CFR (22 CFR parts 120 through 130), the DoD Industrial Security Regulation in DoD 5220.22-R, 3 and the Department of Commerce Export Regulation at chapter VII, subchapter C, title 15 of the CFR (15 CFR parts 730 through 774), as applicable.
3 Electronic copies may be obtained at the Washington Headquarters Services Internet site http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives. Paper copies may be obtained, at cost, from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161.
(2) Exclusive right to use or sell the technology in the United States must, unless the Government grants a waiver, require that products embodying the technology or produced through the use of the technology will be manufactured substantially in the United States. The provision may further provide that:
(i) In individual cases, the Government may waive the requirement of substantial manufacture in the United States upon a showing by the recipient that reasonable but unsuccessful efforts have been made to transfer the technology under similar terms to those likely to manufacture substantially in the United States or that under the circumstances domestic manufacture is not commercially feasible.
(ii) In those cases, the DoD Component may require a refund to the Government of some or all the funds paid under the TIA for the development of the transferred technology.
(c) You may, but are not required to, seek to negotiate a domestic manufacture condition for transfers of nonexclusive rights to use or sell the technology in the United States, to parallel the one described for exclusive licenses in paragraph (b)(2) of this section, if you judge that nonexclusive licenses for foreign manufacture could effectively preclude the establishment of domestic sources of the technology for defense purposes.
§ 37.880   What requirements must I include for periodic reports on program and business status?
Your TIA must include requirements that, as a minimum, include periodic reports addressing program and, if it is an expenditure-based award, business status. You must require submission of the reports at least annually, and you may require submission as frequently as quarterly (this does not preclude a recipient from electing to submit more frequently than quarterly the financial information that is required to process payment requests if the award is an expenditure-based TIA that uses reimbursement or advance payments under § 37.810(a)). The requirements for the content of the reports are as follows:
(a) The program portions of the reports must address progress toward achieving program performance goals, including current issues, problems, or developments.
(b) The business portions of the reports, applicable only to expenditure-based awards, must provide summarized details on the status of resources (federal funds and non-federal cost sharing), including an accounting of expenditures for the period covered by the report. The report should compare the resource status with any payment and expenditure schedules or plans provided in the original award; explain any major deviations from those schedules; and discuss actions that will be taken to address the deviations. You may require a recipient to separately identify in these reports the expenditures for each participant in a consortium and for each programmatic milestone or task, if you, after consulting with the program official, judge that those additional details are needed for good stewardship.
§ 37.885   May I require updated program plans?
In addition to reports on progress to date, your TIA may include a provision requiring the recipient to annually prepare updated technical plans for the future conduct of the research effort. If your TIA does include a requirement for annual program plans, you also must require the recipient to submit the annual program plans to the agreements officer responsible for administering the TIA.
§ 37.890   Must I require a final performance report?
You need not require a final performance report that addresses all major accomplishments under the TIA. If you do not do so, however, there must be an alternative that satisfies the requirement in DoD Instruction 3200.14 4 to document all DoD Science and Technology efforts and disseminate the results through the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). An example of an alternative would be periodic reports throughout the performance of the research that collectively cover the entire project.
4 See footnote 3 to § 37.875(b)(1).
§ 37.895   How is the final performance report to be sent to the Defense Technical Information Center?
(a) Whether your TIA requires a final performance report or uses an alternative means under § 37.890, 5 you may include an award term or condition or otherwise instruct the recipient to submit the documentation, electronically if available, either:
5 Additional information on electronic submission to the DTIC can be found online, currently at http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/submitting/elec_subm.html.
(1) Directly to the DTIC; or
(2) To the office that is administering the award (for subsequent transmission to the DTIC).
(b) If you specify that the recipient is to submit the report directly to the DTIC, you also:
(1) Must instruct the recipient to include a fully completed Standard Form 298, “Report Documentation Page,” with each document, so that the DTIC can recognize the document as being related to the particular award and properly record its receipt; and
(2) Should advise the recipient to provide a copy of the completed Standard Form 298 to the agreements officer responsible for administering the TIA.
§ 37.900   May I tell a participant that information in financial and programmatic reports will not be publicly disclosed?
You may tell a participant that:
(a) We may exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) a trade secret or commercial and financial information that a participant provides after the award, if the information is privileged or confidential information. The DoD Component that receives the FOIA request will review the information in accordance with DoD procedures at 32 CFR 286.23(h) (and any DoD Component supplementary procedures) to determine whether it is privileged or confidential information under the FOIA exemption at 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4), as implemented by the DoD at 32 CFR 286.12(d).
(b) If the participant also provides information in the course of a competition prior to award, there is a statutory exemption for five years from FOIA disclosure requirements for certain types of information submitted at that time (see § 37.420).
§ 37.905   Must I make receipt of the final performance report a condition for final payment?
If a final report is required, your TIA should make receipt of the report a condition for final payment. If the payments are based on payable milestones, the submission and acceptance of the final report by the Government representative will be incorporated as an event that is a prerequisite for one of the payable milestones.
§ 37.910   How long must I require participants to keep records related to the TIA?
Your TIA must require participants to keep records related to the TIA (for which the agreement provides Government access under § 37.915) for a period of three years after submission of the final financial status report for an expenditure-based TIA or final programmatic status report for a fixed-support TIA, with the following exceptions:
(a) The participant must keep records longer than three years after submission of the final financial status report if the records relate to an audit, claim, or dispute that begins but does not reach its conclusion within the 3-year period. In that case, the participant must keep the records until the matter is resolved and final action taken.
(b) Records for any real property or equipment acquired with project funds under the TIA must be kept for three years after final disposition.
§ 37.915   What requirement for access to a for-profit participant's records do I include in a TIA?
(a) If a for-profit participant currently grants access to its records to the DCAA or other Federal Government auditors, your TIA must include for that participant the standard access-to-records requirements at 32 CFR 34.42(e). If the agreement is a fixed-support TIA, the language in 32 CFR 34.42(e) may be modified to provide access to records concerning the recipient's technical performance, without requiring access to the recipient's financial or other records. Note that any need to address access to technical records in this way is in addition to, not in lieu of, the need to address rights in data ( see § 37.845).
(b) For other for-profit participants that do not currently give the Federal Government direct access to their records and are not willing to grant full access to records pertinent to the award, there is no set requirement to include a provision in your TIA for Government access to records. If the audit provision of an expenditure-based TIA gives an IPA access to the recipient's financial records for audit purposes, the Federal Government must have access to the IPA's reports and working papers and you need not include a provision requiring direct Government access to the recipient's financial records. For both fixed-support and expenditure-based TIAs, you may wish to negotiate Government access to recipient records concerning technical performance. Should you negotiate a provision giving access only to specific Government officials ( e.g., the agreements officer), rather than a provision giving Government access generally, it is important to let participants know that the OIG, DoD, has a statutory right of access to records and other materials to which other DoD Component officials have access.
§ 37.920   What requirement for access to a nonprofit participant's records do I include in a TIA?
Your TIA must include for any nonprofit participant, including any FFRDC or GOCO administered by a nonprofit organization, the standard access-to-records requirement that subpart B of 2 CFR part 1136 specifies in Section F of OAR Article II (the standard wording for Section F of OAR Article II is provided in appendix B to 2 CFR part 1136).
§ 37.925   What requirements do I include for termination and enforcement?
Your TIA must apply the standards of 32 CFR 34.51 for termination, 32 CFR 34.52 for enforcement, and your organization's procedures implementing 32 CFR 22.815 for disputes and appeals.
§ 37.1000   What are my responsibilities at the time of award?
At the time of the award, you must:
(a) Ensure that the award document contains the appropriate terms and conditions and is signed by the appropriate parties, in accordance with §§ 37.1005 through 37.1015.
(b) Document your analysis of the agreement in the award file, as discussed in § 37.1020.
(c) Provide information about the award to offices responsible for reporting, as described in § 37.1025.
(d) Distribute copies of the award document, as required by § 37.1045.
§ 37.1005   What are my general responsibilities concerning the award document?
You are responsible for ensuring that the award document is complete and accurate. Your objective is to create a document that:
(a) Addresses all issues;
(b) States requirements directly. It is not helpful to readers to incorporate statutes or rules by reference, without sufficient explanation of the requirements. You generally should not incorporate clauses from the Federal Acquisition Regulation (48 CFR parts 1-53) or Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (48 CFR parts 201-253), because those provisions are designed for procurement contracts that are used to acquire goods and services, rather than for TIAs or other assistance instruments.
(c) Is written in clear and concise language, to minimize potential ambiguity.
§ 37.1010   What substantive issues should my award document address?
You necessarily will design and negotiate a TIA individually to meet the specific requirements of the particular project, so the complete list of substantive issues that you will address in the award document may vary. Every award document must address:
(a) Project scope. The scope is an overall vision statement for the project, including a discussion of the project's purpose, objectives, and detailed military and commercial goals. It is a critical provision because it provides a context for resolving issues that may arise during post-award administration. In a fixed-support TIA, you also must clearly specify the well-defined outcomes that reliably indicate the amount of effort expended and serve as the basis for the level of the fixed support ( see §§ 37.305 and 37.560(a)).
(b) Project management. You should describe the nature of the relationship between the Federal Government and the recipient; the relationship among the participants, if the recipient is an unincorporated consortium; and the overall technical and administrative management of the project. TIAs are used to carry out collaborative relationships between the Federal Government and the recipient. Consequently, there must be substantial involvement of the DoD program official ( see § 37.220) and usually the administrative agreements officer. The program official provides technical insight, which differs from the usual technical oversight of a project. The management provision also should discuss how you and the recipient will make any modifications to the TIA.
(c) Termination, enforcement, and disputes. Your TIA must provide for termination, enforcement remedies, and disputes and appeals procedures, in accordance with § 37.925.
(d) Funding. You must:
(1) Show the total amount of the agreement and the total period of performance.
(2) If the TIA is an expenditure-based award, state the Government's and recipient's agreed-upon cost shares. The award document should identify values for any in-kind contributions, determined in accordance with §§ 37.530 through 37.555, to preclude later disagreements about them.
(3) Specify the amount of Federal funds obligated and the performance period for those obligated funds.
(4) State, if the agreement is to be incrementally funded, that the Government's obligation for additional funding is contingent upon the availability of funds and that no legal obligation on the part of the Government exists until additional funds are made available and the agreement is amended. You also must include a prior approval requirement for changes in plans requiring additional Government funding, in accordance with § 37.825.
(e) Payment. You must choose the payment method and tell the recipient how, when, and where to submit payment requests, as discussed in §§ 37.805 through 37.815. Your payment method must take into account sound cash management practices by avoiding unwarranted cash advances. For an expenditure-based TIA, your payment provision must require the return of interest should excess cash balances occur, in accordance with § 37.820. For any TIA using the milestone payment method described in § 37.805(c), you must include language notifying the recipient that post-award administrators may adjust amounts of future milestone payments if a project's expenditures fall too far below the projections that were the basis for setting the amounts ( see § 37.575(c) and § 37.1105(c)).
(f) Records retention and access to records. You must include the records retention requirement at § 37.910. You also must provide for access to for-profit and nonprofit participants' records, in accordance with § 37.915 and § 37.920.
(g) Patents and data rights. In designing the patents and data rights provision, you must set forth the minimum required Federal Government rights in intellectual property generated under the award and address related matters, as provided in §§ 37.840 through 37.875. It is important to define all essential terms in the patent rights provision.
(h) Foreign access to technology. You must include a provision, in accordance with § 37.875, concerning foreign access and domestic manufacture of products using technology generated under the award.
(i) Title to, management of, and disposition of tangible property. Your property provisions for for-profit and nonprofit participants must be in accordance with §§ 37.685 through 37.700.
(j) Financial management systems. For an expenditure-based award, you must specify the minimum standards for financial management systems of both for-profit and nonprofit participants, in accordance with §§ 37.615 and 37.620.
(k) Allowable costs. If the TIA is an expenditure-based award, you must specify the standards that both for-profit and nonprofit participants are to use to determine which costs may be charged to the project, in accordance with §§ 37.625 through 37.635, as well as § 37.830.
(l) Audits. If your TIA is an expenditure-based award, you must include an audit provision for both for-profit and nonprofit participants and subrecipients, in accordance with §§ 37.640 through 37.670.
(m) Purchasing system standards. You should include a provision specifying the standards in §§ 37.705 and 37.710 for purchasing systems of for-profit and nonprofit participants, respectively.
(n) Program income. You should specify requirements for program income, in accordance with § 37.835.
(o) Financial and programmatic reporting. You must specify the reports that the recipient is required to submit and tell the recipient when and where to submit them, in accordance with §§ 37.880 through 37.905.
(p) Assurances for applicable national policy requirements. You must incorporate assurances of compliance with applicable requirements in Federal statutes, Executive orders, or regulations (except for national policies that require certifications). Appendix D to this part contains a list of commonly applicable requirements that you need to augment with any specific requirements that apply in your particular circumstances ( e.g., general provisions in the appropriations act for the specific funds that you are obligating).
(q) Other routine matters. The agreement should address any other issues that need clarification, including who in the Government will be responsible for post-award administration and the statutory authority or authorities for entering into the TIA ( see appendix B to this part for a discussion of statutory authorities). In addition, the agreement must specify that it takes precedence over any inconsistent terms and conditions in collateral documents such as attachments to the TIA or the recipient's articles of collaboration.
§ 37.1015   How do I decide who must sign the TIA if the recipient is an unincorporated consortium?
(a) If the recipient is a consortium that is not formally incorporated and the consortium members prefer to have the agreement signed by all of them individually, you may execute the agreement in that manner.
(b) If they wish to designate one consortium member to sign the agreement on behalf of the consortium as a whole, you should not decide whether to execute the agreement in that way until you review the consortium's articles of collaboration with legal counsel.
(1) The purposes of the review are to:
(i) Determine whether the articles properly authorize one participant to sign on behalf of the other participants and are binding on all consortium members with respect to the research project; and
(ii) Assess the risk that otherwise could exist when entering into an agreement signed by a single member on behalf of a consortium that is not a legal entity. For example, you should assess whether the articles of collaboration adequately address consortium members' future liabilities related to the research project ( i.e., whether they will have joint and severable liability).
(2) After the review, in consultation with legal counsel, you should determine whether it is better to have all of the consortium members sign the agreement individually or to allow them to designate one member to sign on all members' behalf.
§ 37.1020   What must I document in my award file?
You should include in your award file an agreements analysis in which you:
(a) Briefly describe the program and detail the specific military and commercial benefits that should result from the project supported by the TIA. If the recipient is a consortium that is not formally incorporated, you should attach a copy of the signed articles of collaboration.
(b) Describe the process that led to the award of the TIA, including how you and program officials solicited and evaluated proposals and selected the one supported through the TIA.
(c) Explain how you decided that a TIA was the most appropriate instrument, in accordance with the factors in Subpart B of this part. Your explanation must include your answers to the relevant questions in § 37.225(a) through (d).
(d) Explain how you valued the recipient's cost sharing contributions, in accordance with §§ 37.530 through 37.555. For a fixed-support TIA, you must document the analysis you did ( see § 37.560) to set the fixed level of Federal support; the documentation must explain how you determined the recipient's minimum cost share and show how you estimated the expenditures required to achieve the project outcomes.
(e) Document the results of your negotiation, addressing all significant issues in the TIA's provisions. For example, this includes specific explanations if you:
(1) Specify requirements for a participant's systems that vary from the standard requirements in §§ 37.615(a), 37.625(a), 37.630, or 37.705(a) in cases where those sections provide flexibility for you to do so.
(2) Provide that any audits are to be performed by an IPA, rather than the DCAA, where permitted under § 37.650. Your documentation must include:
(i) The names and addresses of business units for which IPAs will be the auditors;
(ii) Estimated amounts of Federal funds expected under the award for those business units; and
(iii) The basis ( e.g., a written statement from the recipient) for your judging that the business units do not currently perform under types of awards described in § 37.650(b)(1) and (2) and are not willing to grant the DCAA audit access.
(3) Include an intellectual property provision that varies from Bayh-Dole requirements.
(4) Determine that cost sharing is impracticable.
§ 37.1025   Must I report information to the Defense Assistance Awards Data System?
Yes, you must give the necessary information about the award to the office in your organization that is responsible for preparing DD Form 2566, “DoD Assistance Award Action Report,” reports for the Defense Assistance Award Data System, to ensure timely and accurate reporting of data required by 31 U.S.C. 6101-6106 ( see 32 CFR part 21, subpart E).
§ 37.1045   To whom must I send copies of the award document?
You must send a copy of the award document to the:
(a) Recipient. You must include on the first page of the recipient's copy a prominent notice about the current DoD requirements for payment by electronic funds transfer (EFT).
(b) Office you designate to administer the TIA. You are strongly encouraged to delegate post-award administration to the regional office of the Defense Contract Management Agency or Office of Naval Research that administers awards to the recipient. When delegating, you should clearly indicate on the cover sheet or first page of the award document that the award is a TIA, to help the post-award administrator distinguish it from other types of assistance instruments.
(c) Finance and accounting office designated to make the payments to the recipient.
§ 37.1100   What are my responsibilities generally as an administrative agreements officer for a TIA?
As the administrative agreements officer for a TIA, you have the responsibilities that your office agreed to accept in the delegation from the office that made the award. Generally, you will have the same responsibilities as a post-award administrator of a grant or cooperative agreement, as described in 32 CFR 22.715. Responsibilities for TIAs include:
(a) Advising agreements officers before they award TIAs on how to establish award terms and conditions that better meet research programmatic needs, facilitate effective post-award administration, and ensure good stewardship of Federal funds.
(b) Participating as the business partner to the DoD program official to ensure the Government's substantial involvement in the research project. This may involve attendance with program officials at kickoff meetings or post-award conferences with recipients. It also may involve attendance at the consortium management's periodic meetings to review technical progress, financial status, and future program plans.
(c) Tracking and processing of reports required by the award terms and conditions, including periodic business status reports, programmatic progress reports, and patent reports.
(d) Handling payment requests and related matters. For a TIA using advance payments, that includes reviews of progress to verify that there is continued justification for advancing funds, as discussed in § 37.1105(b). For a TIA using milestone payments, it includes making any needed adjustments in future milestone payment amounts, as discussed in § 37.1105(c).
(e) Coordinating audit requests and reviewing audit reports for both single audits of participants' systems and any award-specific audits that may be needed, as discussed in §§ 37.1115 and 37.1120.
(f) Responding, after coordination with program officials, to recipient requests for permission to sell or exclusively license intellectual property to entities that do not agree to manufacture substantially in the United States, as described in § 37.875(b). Before you grant approval for any technology, you must secure assurance that the Government will be able to use the technology ( e.g., a reasonable license for Government use, if the recipient is selling the technology) or seek reimbursement of the Government's investments.
§ 37.1105   What additional duties do I have as the administrator of a TIA with advance payments or payable milestones?
Your additional post-award responsibilities as an administrative agreements officer for an expenditure-based TIA with advance payments or payable milestones are to ensure good cash management. To do so, you must:
(a) For any expenditure-based TIA with advance payments or payable milestones, forward to the responsible payment office any interest that the recipient remits in accordance with § 37.820(b). The payment office will return the amounts to the Department of the Treasury's miscellaneous receipts account.
(b) For any expenditure-based TIA with advance payments, consult with the program official and consider whether program progress reported in periodic reports, in relation to reported expenditures, is sufficient to justify your continued authorization of advance payments under § 37.805(b).
(c) For any expenditure-based TIA using milestone payments, work with the program official at the completion of each payable milestone or upon receipt of the next business status report to:
(1) Compare the total amount of project expenditures, as recorded in the payable milestone report or business status report, with the projected budget for completing the milestone; and
(2) Adjust future payable milestones, as needed, if expenditures lag substantially behind what was originally projected and you judge that the recipient is receiving Federal funds sooner than necessary for program purposes. Before making adjustments, you should consider how large a deviation is acceptable at the time of the milestone. For example, suppose that the first milestone payment for a TIA you are administering is $50,000, and that the awarding official set the amount based on a projection that the recipient would have to expend $100,000 to reach the milestone ( i.e., the original plan was for the recipient's share at that milestone to be 50% of project expenditures). If the milestone payment report shows $90,000 in expenditures, the recipient's share at this point is 44% ($40,000 out of the total $90,000 expended, with the balance provided by the $50,000 milestone payment of Federal funds). For this example, you should adjust future milestones if you judge that a 6% difference in the recipient's share at the first milestone is too large, but not otherwise. Remember that milestone payment amounts are not meant to track expenditures precisely at each milestone and that a recipient's share will increase as it continues to perform research and expend funds, until it completes another milestone to trigger the next Federal payment.
§ 37.1110   What other responsibilities related to payments do I have?
If you are the administrative agreements officer, you have the responsibilities described in 32 CFR 22.810(c), regardless of the payment method. You also must ensure that you do not withhold payments, except in one of the circumstances described in 32 CFR 34.12(g).
§ 37.1115   What are my responsibilities related to participants' single audits?
For audits of for-profit participant's systems, under §§ 37.640 through 37.660, you are the focal point within the Department of Defense for ensuring that participants submit audit reports and for resolving any findings in those reports. Nonprofit participants send their single audit reports to a Governmentwide clearinghouse. For those participants, the Office of the Assistant Inspector General (Auditing) should receive any DoD-specific findings from the clearinghouse and refer them to you for resolution, if you are the appropriate official to do so.
§ 37.1120   When and how may I request an award-specific audit?
Guidance on when and how you should request additional audits for expenditure-based TIAs is identical to the guidance for grants officers in 32 CFR 34.16(d). If you require an award-specific examination or audit of a for-profit participant's records related to a TIA, you must use the auditor specified in the award terms and conditions, which should be the same auditor who performs periodic audits of the participant. The DCAA and the OIG, DoD, are possible sources of advice on audit-related issues, such as appropriate audit objectives and scope.
§ 37.1205   Advance.
A payment made to a recipient before the recipient disburses the funds for program purposes. Advance payments may be based upon recipients' requests or predetermined payment schedules.
§ 37.1210   Advanced research.
Research that creates new technology or demonstrates the viability of applying existing technology to new products and processes in a general way. Advanced research is most closely analogous to precompetitive technology development in the commercial sector ( i.e., early phases of research and development on which commercial competitors are willing to collaborate, because the work is not so coupled to specific products and processes that the results of the work must be proprietary). It does not include development of military systems and hardware where specific requirements have been defined. It is typically funded in Research, Development, Test and Evaluation programs within Budget Activity 3, Advanced Technology Development.
§ 37.1215   Agreements officer.
An official with the authority to enter into, administer, and/or terminate TIAs ( see § 37.125).
§ 37.1220   Applied research.
Efforts that attempt to determine and exploit the potential of scientific discoveries or improvements in technology such as new materials, devices, methods and processes. It typically is funded in Research, Development, Test and Evaluation programs within Budget Activity 2, Applied Research (also known informally as research category 6.2) programs. Applied research normally follows basic research but may not be fully distinguishable from the related basic research. The term does not include efforts whose principal aim is the design, development, or testing of specific products, systems or processes to be considered for sale or acquisition; these efforts are within the definition of “development.”
§ 37.1225   Articles of collaboration.
An agreement among the participants in a consortium that is not formally incorporated as a legal entity, by which they establish their relative rights and responsibilities ( see § 37.515).
§ 37.1230   Assistance.
The transfer of a thing of value to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States ( see 31 U.S.C. 6101(3)). Grants, cooperative agreements, and technology investment agreements are examples of legal instruments used to provide assistance.
§ 37.1235   Award-specific audit.
An audit of a single TIA, usually done at the cognizant agreements officer's request, to help resolve issues that arise during or after the performance of the research project. An award-specific audit of an individual award differs from a periodic audit of a participant (as defined in § 37.1325).
§ 37.1240   Basic research.
Efforts directed toward increasing knowledge and understanding in science and engineering, rather than the practical application of that knowledge and understanding. It typically is funded within Research, Development, Test and Evaluation programs in Budget Activity 1, Basic Research (also known informally as research category 6.1).
§ 37.1245   Cash contributions.
A recipient's cash expenditures made as contributions toward cost sharing, including expenditures of money that third parties contributed to the recipient.
§ 37.1250   Commercial firm.
A for-profit firm or segment of a for-profit firm ( e.g., a division or other business unit) that does a substantial portion of its business in the commercial marketplace.
§ 37.1255   Consortium.
A group of research-performing organizations that either is formally incorporated or that otherwise agrees to jointly carry out a research project (see definition of “articles of collaboration,” in § 37.1225).
§ 37.1260   Cooperative agreement.
A legal instrument which, consistent with 31 U.S.C. 6305, is used to enter into the same kind of relationship as a grant (see definition of “grant,” in § 37.1295), except that substantial involvement is expected between the Department of Defense and the recipient when carrying out the activity contemplated by the cooperative agreement. The term does not include “cooperative research and development agreements” as defined in 15 U.S.C. 3710a.
§ 37.1265   Cost sharing.
A portion of project costs that are borne by the recipient or non-Federal third parties on behalf of the recipient, rather than by the Federal Government.
§ 37.1270   Data.
Recorded information, regardless of form or method of recording. The term includes technical data, which are data of a scientific or technical nature, and computer software. It does not include financial, cost, or other administrative information related to the administration of a TIA.
§ 37.1275   DoD Component.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense, a Military Department, a Defense Agency, or a DoD Field Activity.
§ 37.1280   Equipment.
Tangible property, other than real property, that has a useful life of more than one year and an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more per unit.
§ 37.1285   Expenditure-based award.
A Federal Government contract or assistance award for which the amounts of interim payments or the total amount ultimately paid ( i.e., the sum of interim payments and final payment) are subject to redetermination or adjustment, based on the amounts expended by the recipient in carrying out the purposes for which the award was made. Most Federal Government grants and cooperative agreements are expenditure-based awards.
§ 37.1290   Expenditures or outlays.
Charges made to the project or program. They may be reported either on a cash or accrual basis, as shown in the following table:
§ 37.1295   Grant.
A legal instrument which, consistent with 31 U.S.C. 6304, is used to enter into a relationship:
(a) The principal purpose of which is to transfer a thing of value to the recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States, rather than to acquire property or services for the Department of Defense's direct benefit or use.
(b) In which substantial involvement is not expected between the Department of Defense and the recipient when carrying out the activity contemplated by the grant.
§ 37.1300   In-kind contributions.
The value of non-cash contributions made by a recipient or non-Federal third parties toward cost sharing.
§ 37.1305   Institution of higher education.
An educational institution that:
(a) Meets the criteria in section 101 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001); and
(b) Is subject to the provisions of OMB Circular A-110, “Administrative Requirements for Grants and Agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals, and Other Non-Profit Organizations,” as implemented by the Department of Defense at 32 CFR part 32.
§ 37.1310   Intellectual property.
Inventions, data, works of authorship, and other intangible products of intellectual effort that can be owned by a person, whether or not they are patentable or may be copyrighted. The term also includes mask works, such as those used in microfabrication, whether or not they are tangible.
§ 37.1315   Nonprofit organization.
(a) Any corporation, trust, association, cooperative or other organization that:
(1) Is operated primarily for scientific, educational, service, or similar purposes in the public interest.
(2) Is not organized primarily for profit; and
(3) Uses its net proceeds to maintain, improve, or expand the operations of the organization.
(b) The term includes any nonprofit institution of higher education or nonprofit hospital.
§ 37.1320   Participant.
A consortium member or, in the case of an agreement with a single for-profit entity, the recipient. Note that a for-profit participant may be a firm or a segment of a firm ( e.g., a division or other business unit).
§ 37.1325   Periodic audit.
An audit of a participant, performed at an agreed-upon time (usually a regular time interval), to determine whether the participant as a whole is managing its Federal awards in compliance with the terms of those awards. Appendix C to this part describes what such an audit may cover. A periodic audit of a participant differs from an award-specific audit of an individual award (as defined in § 37.1235).
§ 37.1330   Procurement contract.
A Federal Government procurement contract. It is a legal instrument which, consistent with 31 U.S.C. 6303, reflects a relationship between the Federal Government and a State, a local government, or other recipient when the principal purpose of the instrument is to acquire property or services for the direct benefit or use of the Federal Government. See the more detailed definition of the term “contract” at 48 CFR 2.101.
§ 37.1335   Program income.
Gross income earned by the recipient or a participant that is generated by a supported activity or earned as a direct result of a TIA. Program income includes but is not limited to: income from fees for performing services; the use or rental of real property, equipment, or supplies acquired under a TIA; the sale of commodities or items fabricated under a TIA; and license fees and royalties on patents and copyrights. Interest earned on advances of Federal funds is not program income.
§ 37.1340   Program official.
A Federal Government program manager, scientific officer, or other individual who is responsible for managing the technical program being carried out through the use of a TIA.
§ 37.1345   Property.
Real property, equipment, supplies, and intellectual property, unless stated otherwise.
§ 37.1350   Real property.
Land, including land improvements, structures and appurtenances thereto, but excluding movable machinery and equipment.
§ 37.1355   Recipient.
An organization or other entity that receives a TIA from a DoD Component. Note that a for-profit recipient may be a firm or a segment of a firm (e.g., a division or other business unit).
§ 37.1360   Research.
Basic, applied, and advanced research, as defined in this subpart.
§ 37.1365   Supplies.
Tangible property other than real property and equipment. Supplies have a useful life of less than one year or an acquisition cost of less than $5,000 per unit.
§ 37.1370   Termination.
The cancellation of a TIA, in whole or in part, at any time prior to either:
(a) The date on which all work under the TIA is completed; or
(b) The date on which Federal sponsorship ends, as given in the award document or any supplement or amendment thereto.
§ 37.1375   Technology investment agreements.
A special class of assistance instruments used to increase involvement of commercial firms in defense research programs and for other purposes (described in appendix A to this part) related to integrating the commercial and defense sectors of the nation's technology and industrial base. A technology investment agreement may be a cooperative agreement with provisions tailored for involving commercial firms (as distinct from a cooperative agreement subject to all of the requirements in 32 CFR part 34), or another kind of assistance transaction ( see appendix B to this part).