Glossary / Solicitations, Acquisition
Broad Agency AnnouncementBAA
A Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is a competitive solicitation procedure (FAR 35.016) for basic and applied research and for development work not tied to a specific system. BAAs solicit proposals against broadly defined technology areas rather than fixed requirements, giving offerors latitude to propose their own approach. Awards may be grants, cooperative agreements, or procurement contracts. DARPA, AFRL, ONR, ARL, and NIH all use BAAs heavily. Unlike a traditional RFP, a BAA often accepts white papers first, with full proposals solicited only from promising concepts.
Why it matters to your pipeline
BAAs are a main path for companies selling research, innovation, or early-stage technology into the federal government. Because they are open to unsolicited ideas, they favor technical differentiation over incumbency, so a well-written white paper from a small business can compete with a proposal from a prime. BAAs also rarely impose LPTA pricing pressure, since evaluation emphasizes technical merit. For startups and R&D-focused firms, tracking BAAs across the labs is worth the time.
When this term shows up in an opening GovSmith finds for you, your vCM explains what it means for that pursuit and does whatever it calls for. You decide; we do the work.
Example
DARPA posts a BAA for autonomous underwater vehicle propulsion. A 15-person marine-engineering startup submits a 5-page white paper in 30 days, gets a green light to submit a full proposal, and wins a $1.9M Phase 1 OT award nine months later. The work eventually matures into a Phase 3 production contract with the Navy.
Find out what applies to you
Some terms will matter to your business right away and some won’t for years. A vCM can tell you which are which.