Advanced Analytics and Data Science for Naval Warfare Planning and Execution | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant opportunity titled "Advanced Analytics and Data Science for Naval Warfare Planning and Execution" (Funding Opportunity Number ONRBAA14-009) is a research and development solicitation aimed at pushing the Navy toward a more mature, resilient, and operationally useful "Naval Big Data Ecosystem." The core idea is to move beyond today s fragmented and stove-piped data environments by creating the technical foundations, pipelines, analytics, and safeguards needed to use large, diverse data streams for real-time and near-real-time warfighting decisions. ONR is requesting both white papers and full proposals under a Broad Agency Announcement framework, with an emphasis on Advanced Technology Development that can translate into practical capability improvements rather than purely academic demonstrations.

The opportunity is organized around four main thrust areas that together describe an end-to-end naval data and analytics stack. First, ONR wants a stronger Naval Data Science foundation, meaning improved data representations, semantic structures, and ontologies that let many different naval mission areas speak the same language and support machine-readable reasoning across systems. Second, the Navy is looking for better ways to identify relevant data sources and then acquire, ingest, and index them so they can be discovered and exploited quickly, which implies scalable data engineering, metadata management, and operational data catalogs tailored to defense environments. Third, ONR is seeking advanced analytics that directly support naval warfare mission areas, including methods that can improve understanding of the battlespace, generate predictions, and recommend actions using modern data science and machine learning where appropriate. Fourth, the program emphasizes data protection and security mechanisms to preserve the integrity of data across the analytic lifecycle, reflecting the reality that analytics are only as trustworthy as the provenance, integrity, and security of the data and models being used.

A central operational goal is to dramatically improve the Navy s ability to fuse information from national-level systems and sensors with information from naval tactical combat systems, weapons, and organic sensors, and to do so in time to matter for tactical decision-making. Historically, that kind of integration has been limited by infrastructure constraints, classification boundaries, cross-domain barriers, and mismatched data formats and standards. ONR highlights emerging technologies such as cloud computing, big data platforms, and improved cross-domain technologies as the enablers that now make deeper integration feasible, and the solicitation is essentially an attempt to harness those enablers to deliver new analytic capability at the pace and scale required for warfighting.

The analytics outcomes ONR is trying to improve are directly tied to combat performance: threat assessment and prediction, combat identification, integrated fires, and mission planning and execution. Rather than treating analytics as generic business intelligence, this BAA frames analytics as a warfighting capability that must work with complex sensor data, uncertain and adversarial environments, and operational constraints. While the broader ecosystem is meant to be extensible, the BAA specifies that capability enhancements will be concentrated in two warfare areas: Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD). That focus suggests ONR is especially interested in data fusion and decision support problems involving multi-sensor tracking, classification, prediction, engagement planning, and coordination across platforms and domains, all while maintaining security and data integrity.

From an administrative standpoint, the funding instrument types include grants and procurement contracts, and the activity category is science and technology and other research and development under CFDA 12.300 (Basic and Applied Scientific Research). The estimated total funding is $28.5 million, with an expectation of about 8 awards, and there is no cost sharing or matching requirement stated. The opportunity was posted June 19, 2014, with an original closing date of October 3, 2014 and a current closing date of October 10, 2014, and it was archived November 2, 2014, which matters mainly for historical context if someone is using it as a reference point for current ONR interests.

Eligibility is broadly open to responsible sources in academia and industry, and the announcement explicitly encourages participation by a wide range of small business categories and minority-serving institutions, including HUBZone firms, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, veteran-owned small businesses, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Institutions. However, ONR also makes clear that none of the work is set aside for small businesses because the intent is to compete the best ideas across all entity types. Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (including DOE national labs) are not eligible to receive awards directly, and Navy laboratories, warfare centers, and other government labs are also not eligible to submit white papers or proposals as prime offerors. Those organizations can still participate through teaming arrangements with eligible prime bidders, as long as such arrangements are allowed under their sponsoring agreements. University Affiliated Research Centers may apply unless restricted by their specific DoD UARC contracts. Teams are encouraged, and a notable programmatic expectation is that performers must be willing to cooperate in an integrated program and exchange software, data, and other information with other contractors and system integrators selected by ONR, which signals an emphasis on interoperability and program-level integration rather than isolated prototypes.

Finally, the BAA notes that some topics involve export-controlled technologies, and in those areas participation is limited to U.S. persons as defined under ITAR (22 CFR 120.1 et seq.). That requirement can affect staffing, collaboration, data handling, and publication plans for proposals. For access or administrative issues, the listed contracting officer contact is Lynnette Desorcie at 703-696-4324, with a note referencing Grants.gov questions for electronic announcement access.

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