The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has reduced its funding for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The cut at the Office of Science—the agency’s primary program administrator—appears to be about 35%. The change resulted from congressional direction that the agency had miscalculated its SBIR set-aside and is intended to make the Office of Science’s calculation more consistent with that of the other programs in DOE.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) studies a sample of 198 Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards from FY 2019 to identify subcontracting activity. SBIR recipients are generally allowed to subcontract up to 50% of their award value, and STTR recipients must contract at least 30% with a nonprofit research institution.

In a recent study titled Does NIH select the right healthcare ventures through the SBIR grant program?, researchers from Rutgers University and the University of Connecticut took advantage of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to conduct a natural experiment.

In anticipation of America's Seed Fund week on May 15-18, 2023, this article will explore the last 10 years of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program award data. These data cover all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs offer opportunities for small businesses to innovate and secure federal funding for their ideas from eleven U.S. government agencies. Every state in the U.S. assists potential SBIR/STTR companies to increase their chances of success. SSTI has created a new SBIR/STTR resource guide that includes examples of state-level initiatives in four broad categories: 

Answering the question of what impact a flat 15% F&A reimbursement rate would have on the nation’s SBIR startups requires real data. The data doesn’t currently exist that we are aware of.

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A two-page proposal for a $40,000 Phase IA award? Phase II performance ratios required for companies receiving 10 and 25 Phase I awards over their lifetime? Halving the budget for STTR and shrinking university partner share? Creating a 0.25% carve-out of DOD SBIR funds for phase III awards up to $30M each? Limiting all federal technical assistance and outreach to 25 states with the fewest SBIR/STTR awards? Stronger, broader, tougher foreign risk requirements for the companies and agency due diligence? 

Last year's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) reauthorization included a new requirement that participating agencies work to identify foreign connections of applying companies. Certain types of connections to “countries of concern,” which include China and Russia, could result in the small business being prohibited from receiving federal funds. The U.S.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently announced 44 FAST awards, including 12 new awards,  totaling over $5.4 million, with each up to $125,000 for specialized training, mentoring, and technical assistance for research and development.

The Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program is often compared to the U.S. Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. And, like the SBIR program, ISC has faced criticism from skeptics despite metrics that show the program delivers high returns on investment. When Canada’s Budget 2023 Initiative recommended reallocating 14.1 billion Canadian dollars (CAD) in federal spending, each Ministry was tasked to identify programs that did not address the government’s top priorities.

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is one of the federal government's most substantial investments for moving innovation from America’s small businesses into the private market or federal procurement in areas like defense, space, energy or transportation.

Commercializing patented inventions is a common goal of innovation policy, as it drives company revenues and regional economic growth. However, tracking the commercialization of inventions stemming from R&D is challenging. While programs like the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program are explicitly designed to encourage commercialization, most evaluation tools rely on approaches that may be anecdotal or incomplete, such as surveys, case studies, or patent counts.

Over the past 40 years, many people involved in SBIR and empirical analysts in the research, finance, and technology sectors have said SBIR awardees, as a group, are uniquely important for America’s innovation goals.