Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)
A Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is a general solicitation under FAR 35.016 for basic and applied research, announcing areas of research interest rather than a work statement; awards follow peer or scientific review and qualify as competitive procedures under FAR 6.102(d)(2).
A BAA announces areas of research interest instead of a work statement. FAR 35.016 limits it to basic and applied research and to development not tied to a specific system or hardware procurement, and requires the announcement to state the agency's research interests, the selection criteria and their relative importance, and the response period.
Evaluation runs through peer or scientific review. Proposals are judged against the announcement's criteria, not against each other, since there is no common work statement; selection turns on technical merit, importance to agency programs, and availability of funds. FAR 6.102(d)(2) treats award under these procedures as a competitive procedure, so no separate competition justification is needed.
The trap is the system tie. Work that supports a specific system under development fails the 35.016 restriction no matter how research-flavored the write-up, and protests on that ground succeed. The announcement must also invite all offerors capable of meeting the need, not a preselected performer.
Regulatory Reference
FAR 35.016; FAR 6.102(d)(2)
RFO Status
The Part 35 model deviation (RFO-2025-35, issued July 2025) keeps BAA procedures substantively intact, relocating them from 35.016 to 35.102 with plain-language edits.
Category
Processes & Methods
How AcqBot Helps
AcqBot screens a requirement against the FAR 35.016 research-only restriction before an announcement goes out, drafts the BAA with compliant selection criteria, and builds the peer-review documentation that supports each award decision.
Related glossary entries
Sources Sought Notice
A Sources Sought Notice is a pre-solicitation announcement, typically posted to SAM.gov, asking companies to identify their interest and capability to perform a prospective requirement — primarily used as market research to shape competition and set-aside decisions.
Request for Information (RFI)
A Request for Information (RFI) is a formal market research instrument used to gather industry input on capabilities, approaches, pricing structures, or draft requirements when the government is not yet ready to solicit — responses are voluntary and non-binding.
Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA)
Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) is a source selection process that awards to the lowest-priced offeror whose proposal meets minimum acceptability standards — no credit is given for exceeding requirements, and tradeoffs between price and quality are not permitted.
Best-Value Tradeoff
The best-value tradeoff process permits award to other than the lowest-priced or highest-rated offeror when the source selection authority documents that the superior proposal's benefits are worth its price premium, or that a cheaper proposal's savings outweigh its weaknesses.