Fiscal Year 2024 Competitive Funding Opportunity: Technology Transfer (T2) Program

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Transit Administration</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Fiscal Year 2024 Competitive Funding Opportunity: Technology Transfer (T2) Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of funding opportunity (NOFO). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announces the opportunity to apply for a total of $5,000,000 from Fiscal Years (FY) 2022, 2023, and 2024 in Public Transportation Innovation Program funds for a competitive cooperative agreement to develop and manage a new FTA Technology Transfer (T2) Program. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Complete applications must be submitted electronically through the <E T="03">grants.gov</E> “APPLY” function by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on February 11, 2025. Prospective applicants should initiate the process by registering on the <E T="03">grants.gov</E> website promptly to ensure completion of the application process before the submission deadline. Instructions for applying can be found on FTA's website at <E T="03">https://www.transit.dot.gov/howtoapply</E> and in the “FIND” module of <E T="03">grants.gov.</E> The funding opportunity ID is FTA-2025-002-TRI. Mail, fax, and email submissions will not be accepted. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Shapell Randolph, FTA Office of Research, Demonstration, and Innovation, phone: 202-366-1086, or email <E T="03">shapell.randolph@dot.gov.</E> In addition, up to the application deadline, the U.S. Department of Transportation (Department) will post answers to common questions and requests for clarifications on the Department's website at <E T="03">https://www.transit.dot.gov/grant-programs/technology-transfer-t2-program.</E> <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,p1,8/9,i1" CDEF="s50,r200"> <TTITLE>Summary Overview of Key Information—FTA Technology Transfer (T2) Program Competitive Funding Opportunity</TTITLE> <CHED H="1"> </CHED> <CHED H="1"> </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Issuing Agency</ENT> <ENT>Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Program Overview</ENT> <ENT>To establish a Technology Transfer (T2) Program under 49 U.S.C. 5312(e)(2) to promote the early deployment and demonstration of innovation in public transportation that has broad applicability to public transportation.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Eligible Applicants</ENT> <ENT>Departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Government, including Federal laboratories; State and local governmental entities; providers of public transportation; private or non-profit organizations; institutions of higher education; and technical and community colleges.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Eligible Project</ENT> <ENT> Activities may include: All activities that promote the early deployment and demonstration of innovative research, advance promising technologies, practices and strategies including, but not limited to planning, acquiring essential services, and program implementation. Activities that seek to commercialize technologies developed through FTA funding. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Funding Amount</ENT> <ENT> $5,000,000. Additional funds made available prior to project selection may be allocated to eligible projects. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Deadline</ENT> <ENT>February 11, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. eastern time.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Cost share</ENT> <ENT>The maximum Federal share of project costs under this program is 100 percent.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">A. Program Description</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">B. Federal Award Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">C. Eligibility Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">D. Application and Submission Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">E. Application Review Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">F. Federal Award Administration Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">G. Federal Awarding Agency Contacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">H. Other Information</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">A. Program Description</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Background</HD> The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Public Transportation Innovation Program (49 U.S.C. 5312) funds research, development, demonstration, and deployment projects, and evaluation of research and technology of national significance to public transportation that will improve public transportation. On average, on a yearly basis, FTA manages a research investment portfolio of over $200 million in active projects. When these projects identify and finalize useful, promising solutions and practices, it is essential that FTA has a way to quickly facilitate the deployment of these findings to transit agencies for their use. This notice (Federal Assistance Listing: 20.531) announces a new Technology Transfer (T2) Program under 49 U.S.C. 5312(e)(2) to promote the early deployment and demonstration of innovation in public transportation that has broad applicability to public transportation. The T2 program will seek to build on successful research, innovation, and development efforts to facilitate the deployment of research and technology development resulting from federally funded efforts and the implementation of research and technology development to advance the interests of public transportation. A quarterly planning process between the FTA Research Office and the recipient of this award will facilitate the selection of which programs and projects to deploy. T2 will also support ensuring that FTA's Innovative Research activities meet Executive Order 14104, Federal Research and Development in Support of Domestic Manufacturing and United States Jobs (88 FR 51203). This Executive Order calls for the enhancement of U.S. manufacturing while encouraging technology transfer and commercialization and allowing small businesses and nonprofit organizations to retain ownership of and commercialize their federally funded products or inventions. As appropriate, T2 will also provide an opportunity for recipients of FTA innovative research funding to not only broadly share their research or inventions but to potentially commercialize them. For this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO), FTA is defining “technology transfer” as the exchange of information to enable the deployment, adoption, and potentially the commercialization of FTA-funded research findings. Currently, FTA tracks and assesses the impact of technology adoption in two ways. First, FTA tracks technology research projects along the lifecycle of the projects and notes whether the recipient conducting the research chooses to adopt the new technology or process. Secondly, FTA analyzes data from the internal database of all FTA-funded programs using natural language search techniques to assess the level of deployment of FTA researched solutions. By further investing in the process of technology adoption through T2, FTA can reach a wider audience in the transit industry and more effectively track the use of FTA research findings. In many instances, transit agencies and other stakeholders may not have the proper resources to access information that could potentially be beneficial to their organization. They may also be reluctant to participate in the exchange of information or hesitant to adopt new technology. The T2 program will address these deployment barriers and explore solutions to facilitate change management in the use of promising FTA innovative research adoption. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Program Goals</HD> FTA is soliciting applications to develop and implement a new T2 program to facilitate the deployment of promising innovative research solutions resulting from FTA's research investments. A strategic aim for this work includes strengthening U.S. manufacturing by encouraging technology transfer and, as appropriate, supporting small businesses and nonprofit organizations' retention of intellectual property and helping commercialize their federally funded innovations. The goals of the T2 program are to: (1) Develop processes, systems, and resources to support the deployment and adoption of FTA's innovative research results in the public transportation industry. (2) Support the commercialization and production of technologies developed in the U.S., in part through FTA-funded research and development. (3) Overcome barriers and challenges affecting the adoption of research products in transit agencies. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Management and Coordination</HD> The awardee will be responsible for overall program management, coordination, and adherence to established project timelines in accordance with available funding. This includes all aspects of resource management, compliance, and reporting, including oversight of sub-recipients, if any. Eligible activities include data collection, deployment specialists for planning, outreach, and knowledge transfer. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Development of Lessons Learned</HD> Research conducted under this notice will advance the strategic goals of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) as outlined in its active Strategic Plan FY 2022-2026 and the Department's Innovation Principles, which can be found at <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/priorities/transformation/us-dot-innovation-principles.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">B. Federal Award Information</HD> This notice announces the availability of $5,000,000 to award one competitively selected application to develop and manage FTA's T2 program with an expected period of performance spanning at least 48 months. Funding is available under FTA's Public Transportation Innovation Program (49 U.S.C. 5312). FTA may, at its discreti ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 46k characters. 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