Cyber Security (CS) Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA) Program Announcement (PA) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Cyber Security (CS) Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA) Program Announcement (PA), Funding Opportunity Number W911NF-13-R-0004, is a U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) initiative released through the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground (RTP Division). The opportunity is framed around a central Army need: cyber attacks against military networks are becoming more frequent and more sophisticated at the same time the Army is relying more heavily on networked and cyber-enabled systems to carry out its mission. In response, ARL is expanding its broader enterprise approach to cyber security by creating a new extramural collaborative venture designed to push forward the basic science underlying cyber security for Army-relevant networks and operational environments.

At its core, this CRA is about strengthening the theoretical foundations of "cyber science" rather than simply building point solutions or near-term tools. ARL is looking for research that leads to fundamental laws, theories, and models that are both theoretically grounded and empirically validated, and that can generalize across many Army domains, applications, and settings. A defining feature of the CRA concept is the expectation of deep, ongoing collaboration among academia, industry, and government researchers, organized as an integrated team rather than isolated projects. ARL emphasizes that meaningful progress on these problems requires multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary work, including rigorous treatment of the human element that shapes cyber behavior and outcomes.

The technical scope is organized into three interrelated Research Areas plus one cross-cutting research issue that must be studied alongside the technical areas. The three Research Areas are: (1) Risk, focusing on understanding, characterizing, and modeling cyber risk in Army contexts; (2) Detection, addressing the ability to identify malicious activity, anomalies, and threats in contested network environments; and (3) Agility, centered on the capacity of systems and defenders to adapt rapidly in the face of changing threats, missions, and operating conditions. In addition to these, the Cross Cutting Research Issue is Psychosocial Effects, which explicitly brings in human factors such as attacker and defender behavior, decision-making, user interactions, and the broader social and psychological dynamics that influence cyber operations. ARL indicates that advancing theory in the three technical research areas requires treating psychosocial effects as integral, not optional, and studying them within the constraints and realities of Army networks.

The funding instrument anticipated is a cooperative agreement under 31 U.S.C. 6305, which signals substantial involvement by the government during execution compared to a standard grant. ARL expects to make an award to a single Consortium that may include academic institutions, industry, and nonprofit organizations. The consortium must be led by an academic institution that takes responsibility for driving a focused basic research program and keeping the overall effort cohesive and well integrated. While the consortium is expected to include sufficient partners to cover expertise across Risk, Detection, Agility, and the psychosocial cross-cutting work, ARL also cautions that the team should not become so large that it loses focus or integration. An explicit program goal is that "covered educational institutions," including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), receive 5 percent of the annual cooperative agreement funding.

The application and selection process is two-stage. First, offerors submit whitepapers, which are used to identify the most promising concepts and teams. Only those invited after the whitepaper stage submit full proposals. For this announcement, whitepapers were due April 26, 2013, and full proposals from invited offerors were due July 19, 2013, with an award expected around September 2013. The Army anticipated supporting the CRA for five years, with an option to extend for an additional five years, contingent on the availability of funds and program performance.

From a funding and eligibility standpoint, the opportunity is categorized as discretionary and supports science and technology and other research and development activities under CFDA 12.630 (Basic, Applied, and Advanced Research in Science and Engineering). There is no cost sharing or matching requirement listed. The posted funding range indicates a large, multi-year program scale, with an award floor of $15.6 million and an award ceiling of $80.7 million, reflecting the expectation of a major, long-term collaborative research enterprise rather than a small set of independent awards. Eligible applicants include a broad mix of organization types, including public and private institutions of higher education, small businesses, for-profit entities (including those other than small businesses), and nonprofits (including 501(c)(3) and certain non-501(c)(3) organizations).

Administrative details identify the sponsoring agency as the Department of the Army, Materiel Command, with contracting handled through ACC-APG RTP. The contracting office address is ACC APG RTP, ATTN: AMSSB-ACR, Research Triangle Park Division, P.O. Box 1221, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2211. The point of contact listed is William A. Creech (phone 919-549-4212). The full program announcement was referenced as available through ARL's CRA cyber site (www.arl.army.mil/cracyber).

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