The Department of Defense released its Blanket Other Transaction Announcement (BOTA) announcing the opportunity for businesses to partner with DoD for research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences June 12.

The DoD uses other transaction authorities (OTAs) to fund critical requirements for prototypes to spur innovation and attract non-traditional and small businesses with leading-edge technologies to enable more rapid acquisition of innovative technologies.

“We want to work with companies of all sizes to advance capabilities and protect America’s Warfighter,” said Thomas Browning, who performs the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mission Capabilities. “Information exchange agreements (IEAs) with industry partners are fundamental to enhancing the innovation ecosystem, sparking ideas, and realizing leap-ahead capabilities while safeguarding shared information and ideas.”

Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) for Mission Capabilities (MC) (ASD(MC)) invites companies with developmental and maturing capabilities, concepts and technologies to help close time-critical warfighter capability gaps in high-priority, multi-component missions.

ASD(MC)’s goal is to accelerate the identification, incubation, and transition of urgent capabilities to the Warfighter to maintain U.S. competitive advantage by leveraging Government and industry research and engineering efforts.