DARPA DSO's Office-Wide BAA Runs to August 27, 2027 — and It Rewards Proposers Who Show Up With a One-Page Executive Summary

Most DARPA money is attached to a named program. A program manager writes a thesis, publishes a solicitation built around it, and funds the teams that can advance it. If your idea doesn't fit one of those programs, there's usually nothing to apply to.

The Defense Sciences Office's office-wide Broad Agency Announcement is the main exception. It's DARPA's standing door for revolutionary physical-science, mathematics, and complex-systems ideas that no current program covers, and the new version just opened for a full year.

The solicitation is HR001126S0015, posted August 28, 2026. Executive summaries, abstracts, and full proposals are all accepted on a rolling basis until August 27, 2027 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Questions close August 6, 2027. DARPA anticipates multiple awards across four instrument types: cooperative agreements, procurement contracts, Other Transactions for Research, and Other Transactions for Prototype.

That makes this a very different decision from the one we described last week for the I2O office-wide BAA, whose abstract window closes November 1 after a mid-cycle pause. DSO's clock just started. The question isn't whether you can beat a deadline. It's how to use ten months of rolling access without wasting your one live slot.

What DSO says it wants

The BAA asks for "innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems for national security applications." It also rules out research that "primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice," and adds a second exclusion that's easy to miss: DSO isn't interested in work that's primarily "for manufacturing scale-up."

DSO groups its interests into four thrust areas. A proposal can fall outside all four, but if it fits one, the submission has to say which:

DSO describes its own mission as creating "strategic surprise advantage" by "pushing technology toward its fundamental scientific limits." That's the bar. An idea that improves a sensor by 30 percent belongs at a service lab or in an SBIR topic. An idea that changes what a sensor can physically detect belongs here.

The BAA also says it's meant for topics "not being addressed by ongoing DSO programs or other published solicitations." Before you write anything, read DSO's current program list and open solicitations. A concept that overlaps an active program will be redirected or rejected as duplicative.

The mandatory gate, and the new lighter entry point

You can't send a full proposal cold. Every full proposal must follow either an executive summary (Attachment A) or an abstract (Attachments B and C), and it must include DARPA's response letter to that earlier submission as Attachment Q. A full proposal without Attachment Q is non-conforming and won't be reviewed.

What's useful in this cycle is the two-tier pre-proposal path:

1. Executive summary. This is the lightest entry point. DARPA replies with a short statement encouraging or discouraging an abstract or full proposal.
2. Abstract. This is more developed. DARPA replies encouraging or discouraging a full proposal.

A discouragement doesn't block you. The BAA says proposers "may still submit follow-on abstracts or full proposals regardless of DARPA decision to encourage or discourage," and DARPA will include brief feedback explaining why. In practice, though, a full proposal sent after a discouragement is a long shot, and the feedback matters more than the formal right to continue.

DARPA screens pre-proposals against five alignment and conformity criteria. A concept fails if it:

• doesn't align with the technical areas described;
• doesn't fit DSO's current investment portfolio;
• is evolutionary rather than revolutionary;
• is research that's already done and now needs fabrication or manufacturing money; or
• has already received funding or a positive funding decision from DARPA or another agency.

The last criterion catches more teams than you'd expect. If your concept is a continuation of an existing DOE, AFOSR, or ONR award, DSO will treat it as already funded. Frame it as a new, separable direction, or don't submit it.

One live submission per PI

This is the rule that should shape how you use the year.

A PI can have only one pre-proposal (an executive summary or an abstract) under review at a time. If you send two, DARPA evaluates the first by BAAT timestamp and may reject the rest as non-conforming. You have to wait for DARPA's reply before sending another, with one exception: once DARPA has encouraged an abstract for one effort, you can submit a new executive summary or abstract for a different effort while the encouraged one moves forward.

DARPA says it will "strive to respond to all preproposal submissions within 30 calendar days." If it hasn't responded within 60 calendar days of your BAAT timestamp, you can submit the next one.

Work out what that allows. If the 30-day target holds, a single PI has roughly ten serial pre-proposal attempts between now and August 2027. If DARPA uses the full 60 days, it's about five. Either way, the binding constraint isn't the deadline. It's the queue. A research group with three strong concepts and one PI should either spread them across co-investigators who each act as PI on their own submission, or rank them and send the strongest first.

Start early for that reason. A PI who submits in October 2026 gets several attempts. A PI who submits in June 2027 gets one.

The accelerated award option: $2 million in 30 days

The most commercially important feature of this BAA is the accelerated award option. Selected full proposals that don't exceed $2,000,000, from proposers who accept a set of prescribed stipulations, will be awarded within 30 days of the selection notification.

To use it, include Attachment I (the accelerated award election and attestation form) with your proposal, plus Attachment M or N if you're requesting an OT for Prototype or an OT for Research. These proposals have to go through BAAT. Attachments J, K, and L are model contracts for large and small businesses and the clause addendum. Read them before you elect this option, because electing it means accepting those terms rather than negotiating your own.

DSO places this inside a broader push to shorten time-to-award. The BAA lists Disruption Opportunities ("Disruptioneering"), Advanced Research Concepts, Pitch Days, and the accelerated option as "focused, milestone-based contracts designed to reduce negotiations and emphasize the quality of the idea and its potential for disruption over the proposer's ability to write a proposal." It also says payment tied to research execution rather than "meeting aggressive metrics" is meant to reward riskier ideas.

The strategic read: if your seed effort can be scoped to $2 million or less, the accelerated path is very likely the better route. For a small company, thirty days from selection to signed award matters more than almost any other term in the agreement. For a university, it avoids months of negotiation that often eat into the first project year. Design the scope to fit under the ceiling, then use the results to compete for a named program later.

FDRTA: $150,000 a year for a cleared-track student

University primes can add an optional task for the DSO Fundamental Defense Research Talent Award (FDRTA). It provides up to $150,000 per year for the duration of the effort to support a U.S. citizen graduate student or postdoctoral researcher working on the proposed fundamental research. The stated purpose is to develop "the next generation of clearable scientific talent."

The conditions matter:

• One FDRTA per prime proposer.
• Funding decisions are separate from the base award and depend on available funds.
• The option can only be exercised after an eligible student or postdoc is identified and confirmed.
• A departing U.S. citizen student can only be replaced by another U.S. citizen student. If no replacement is found, the option is de-scoped and the remaining funds go back to DARPA.

Over a multi-year effort, the FDRTA is a substantial addition to the base award. It costs a paragraph in the abstract and costs nothing if declined. Any university PI with a citizen student on the project should propose it. Labs whose graduate students are mostly international should know that the option comes with a replacement risk that can end it mid-project.

Who can't apply

This BAA is broader in some ways than the I2O solicitation and narrower in others.

Eligible: "All responsible sources," including non-U.S. organizations and individuals, subject to nondisclosure agreements, security rules, and export controls. HBCUs, small businesses, and minority institutions are encouraged to apply, but nothing is set aside.

Not eligible: FFRDCs, UARCs, and government entities, including national laboratories. That's a hard exclusion, not a restriction you can work around with a waiver. Lab scientists with a DSO-shaped idea need a university or industry partner as prime, and the lab's role has to be structured in a way the solicitation's terms allow.

Fundamental research, FRRBS, and CMMC

Fundamental research isn't presumed. DARPA says it "cannot identify whether the work under this solicitation may be considered fundamental research" and may award both kinds. Proposers have to state whether they believe their scope is fundamental, and explain it at the subaward level if the prime and subawardees differ. The government decides. For universities whose policies forbid publication restrictions, make the fundamental-research case explicit and early.

FRRBS applies to fundamental research awards. DARPA's Fundamental Research Risk-Based Security Review assesses all Senior/Key Personnel selected for negotiation of fundamental research awards, including cooperative agreements and OTs. That review is separate from scientific review and is decided before award. Clean up current-and-pending disclosures and foreign-affiliation records before you submit, not after you're selected.

CMMC depends on the instrument:

• Cooperative agreements: No CMMC requirement as of publication.
• Procurement contracts and OTs: CMMC Level 1 (Self-Assessment) at the time of full proposal submission, with a current status and annual affirmation posted in SPRS and tied to the proposing entity's CMMC UID.
• Possible Level 2: DARPA will say in its reply to your executive summary or abstract whether your proposal would require CMMC Level 2 (the 110 NIST SP 800-171 requirements). It tells you even if it discourages a full proposal.
• Flow-down: Primes must attest that subcontractors handling FCI or CUI meet the applicable level, and must describe how they'll verify it in SPRS.

The practical consequence: a small company that wants an OT or contract and has never posted a CMMC Level 1 self-assessment in SPRS should do that now. It's a self-assessment against 15 or 17 basic safeguarding requirements, not a third-party audit, but a missing SPRS record makes an otherwise selectable proposal ineligible. Universities that plan to request a cooperative agreement are currently exempt, and that's one more reason the instrument choice matters.

How DSO scores full proposals

Three criteria, in descending order of importance:

1. Overall Scientific and Technical Merit. Innovation, feasibility, team expertise, logically sequenced tasks, defined deliverables, and identified risks with mitigation.
2. Potential Contribution and Relevance to the DARPA Mission. Whether the work strengthens the national security technology base and creates or prevents technological surprise, and whether proposed IP restrictions would hinder transition.
3. Cost and Schedule Realism. Labor, materials, and travel are necessary and substantiated, and the schedule "aggressively pursues performance metrics."

The BAA has no funding ceiling outside the accelerated option, so cost realism is judged against your own scope. An inflated budget hurts you here because there's no published cap to hide behind. The second criterion's IP clause is a quiet warning to companies: aggressive data-rights assertions can lower a technically strong proposal.

Mechanics

• Executive summaries and abstracts: BAAT, regardless of the instrument you want.
• Full proposals for contracts and OTs: BAAT, with Attachments D, E, F, and G.
• Full proposals for cooperative agreements: Grants.gov, with Attachments D, E, and G plus the SF424 (R&R) budget, biosketches, and current-and-pending support for all key personnel.
• Assistance Listing: 12.910. NAICS: 541713, 541714, 541715, 541720.
• Contact: HR001126S0015@darpa.mil. Talking to DSO program managers before submitting is "strongly encouraged."

For a general walkthrough of BAA structure, see our guide to responding to DARPA BAAs. Small businesses weighing this BAA against topic-based funding should also look at the Department of War FY27 SBIR/STTR Release 1.

What to do this month

1. Read DSO's active program list. Cut any concept that overlaps an active program.
2. Rank your concepts and decide who acts as PI on each. Remember the one-live-submission rule.
3. Write the executive summary first. It's the cheapest way to learn whether DSO is interested, and it starts your 30-to-60-day clock.
4. Scope to $2 million where you can, and plan to elect the accelerated award option.
5. Post your CMMC Level 1 self-assessment in SPRS if you'll want a contract or OT.
6. University primes: add the FDRTA task if a U.S. citizen student is on the project.

A rolling window through August 2027 looks like plenty of time, but under the one-at-a-time rule, each month you wait is one fewer attempt. The teams that get the most from this BAA will be the ones whose first executive summary reaches DSO before Thanksgiving.