U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

2004 Presidential Award for Management Excellence

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Competitive Sourcing
Innovative and Exemplary Practices

In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced a new vision for expanding human presence across the solar system. Achieving this vision will require NASA to continue to pioneer new areas of exploration and discovery, while it makes the best and most effective use of limited resources.

Nearly 87 percent of NASA’s budget is spent through contracts and other instruments. NASA has developed science competitions as a way to fulfill the President’s Management Agenda for competitive sourcing in the unique environment of scientific research. These competitions have improved the quality of NASA’s funded research and increased its ability to carry out its mission cost-effectively. The Office of Management and Budget approved NASA’s science competitions as an innovative alternative to the standard competitions under OMB Circular A-76.

In these competitions, NASA announces its research opportunities to a wide range of organizations, including NASA Field Centers, colleges and universities, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, and others. All proposals are evaluated through the same peer review process, regardless of who submits the proposal. Thus, NASA and other Government competitors must comply with full-cost accounting, including submitting proposals with fully loaded costs. Losing these science competitions will have direct consequences over the long run, as NASA Centers will not be able to carry the cost of unfunded full-time employees (FTEs) indefinitely.

These science competitions are shaping the Agency’s culture to more closely resemble academia and industry. Fourteen percent of the Agency’s 2,770 FTEs whose jobs are suitable for science competitions are now funded through this mechanism, with projected annual increases of about 200 additional FTEs.

Awards are based on perceived best value considering the proposed cost. The breadth and diversity of these public-private competitions have resulted in discoveries that influence scientific understanding, enable new observations, improve mission design, and increase the productivity of flight projects. In addition, much of the research performed as a result of these competitions has complemented and benefited the work of other Federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation.

Through science competitions, NASA has developed an innovative and effective mechanism to implement competitive sourcing while carrying out its core process of fundamental research. The result has been world-class science carried out in a manner that represents the best value for the American people.