[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 15, Volume 1, Parts 0 to 299]
[Revised as of January 1, 2001]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 15CFR295.4]

[Page 456-457]
 
                  TITLE 15--COMMERCE AND FOREIGN TRADE
 
 CHAPTER II--NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT 
                               OF COMMERCE
 
PART 295--ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM--Table of Contents
 
                           Subpart A--General
 
Sec. 295.4  The selection process.

    (a) The selection process for awards is a multi-step process based 
on the criteria listed in Sec. 295.6. Source evaluation boards (SEB) are 
established to ensure that all proposals receive careful consideration. 
In the first step, called ``preliminary screening,'' proposals may be 
eliminated by the SEB that do not meet the requirements of this Part of 
the annual Federal Register Program announcement. Typical but not 
exclusive of the reasons for eliminating a proposal at this stage are 
that the proposal: is deemed to have serious deficiencies in either the 
technical or business plan; involves product development rather than 
high-risk R&D; is not industry-led; is significantly overpriced or 
underpriced given the scope of the work; does not meet the requirements 
set out in the notice of availability of funds issued pursuant to

[[Page 457]]

Sec. 295.7; or does not meet the cost-sharing requirement. NIST will 
also examine proposals that have been submitted to a previous 
competition to determine whether substantive revisions have been made to 
the earlier proposal, and, if not, may reject the proposal.
    (b) In the second step, referred to as the ``technical and business 
review,'' proposals are evaluated under the criteria found in 
Sec. 295.6. Proposals judged by the SEB after considering the technical 
and business evaluations to have the highest merit based on the 
selection criteria receive further consideration and are referred to as 
``semifinalists.''
    (c) In the third step, referred to as ``selection of finalists,'' 
the SEB prepares a final ranking of semifinalist proposals by a majority 
vote, based on the evaluation criteria in Sec. 295.6. During this step, 
the semifinalist proposers will be invited to an oral review of their 
proposals with NIST, and in some cases site visits may be required. 
Subject to the provisions of Sec. 295.6, a list of ranked finalists is 
submitted to the Selecting Official.
    (d) In the final step, referred to as ``selection of recipients,'' 
the Selecting Official selects funding recipients from among the 
finalists, based upon: the SEB rank order of the proposals on the basis 
of all selection criteria (Sec. 295.6); assuring an appropriate 
distribution of funds among technologies and their applications; the 
availability of funds; and adherence to the Program selection criteria. 
The Program reserves the right to deny awards in any case where 
information is uncovered which raises a reasonable doubt as to the 
responsibility of the proposer. The decision of the Selecting Official 
is final.
    (e) NIST reserves the right to negotiate the cost and scope of the 
proposed work with the proposers that have been selected to receive 
awards. For example, NIST may request that the proposer delete from the 
scope of work a particular task that is deemed by NIST to be product 
development or otherwise inappropriate for ATP support.

[63 FR 64413, Nov. 20, 1998]