Jacobs pushes back after Battelle again wins Arctic award

For the second time, Battelle has unseated long-time incumbent Jacobs Polar Services for a $260.7 million contract to support Artic research.

Battelle first won the contract in December. But then Jacobs filed a protest through its Jacobs Polar Services joint venture that has held the contract since at least 2011. The work came to Jacobs through its 2017 acquisition of CH2M Hill.

In its first protest, Jacobs argued that the evaluation was not properly done. That led the National Science Foundation to reconsider the award.

And now Battelle has won again after that reconsideration. And again, Jacobs is claiming that the evaluation wasn’t reasonable. Jacobs says it would have won if NSF ran the evaluation correctly..

The contract is called the Arctic Research Support and Logistics Services contract and is used for logistics, operational and other support activities for NSF research projects. The work supports facilities in Alaska, Greenland, Canada, Russia, Fennoscandia and the Arctic Ocean. Fennoscandia is the region that includes Finland, Norway, Sweden and part of Russia.

Research work falls into eight major categories -- atmospheric science, oceanography, biology, earth science, glaciology, social sciences, engineering and science education.

Other members of Jacobs Polar Services include Polar Field Services Inc., SRI International and UMIAQ.