Small Business Innovation Research

Short description: American research grant program

"SBIR" redirects here. For speaker boundary interference response, see Loudspeaker § Placement. Not to be confused with SBIRS.

The Small Business Innovation Research (or SBIR) program is a U.S. government funding program, coordinated by the Small Business Administration, intended to help certain small businesses conduct research and development (R&D). Funding takes the form of contracts or grants. The recipient projects must have the potential for commercialization and must meet specific U.S. government R&D needs.

Funds are obtained by allocating a certain percentage of the total extramural (R&D) budgets of the 11 federal agencies with extramural research budgets in excess of $100 million. Approximately $2.5 billion is awarded through this program each year. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest agency in this program with approximately $1 billion in SBIR grants annually. Over half the awards from the DoD are to firms with fewer than 25 people and a third to firms of fewer than 10. A fifth are minority or women-owned businesses. Historically a quarter of the companies receiving grants are receiving them for the first time.[1]

In April 2021, the DoD reported on a lack of due diligence for SBIR recipients, which permitted funds to go toward companies linked to the People's Liberation Army.[2] In 2022, the program was reauthorized with additional disclosure requirements for companies that have ties to "any foreign country of concern, including the People's Republic of China."[3]

## Contents

* 1 Participating agencies
* 2 Related programs
* 3 History
* 4 America's Seed Fund
* 5 Evaluation
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links

## Participating agencies

Each Federal agency with an extramural budget for R&D in excess of $100,000,000 must participate in the SBIR Program and reserve at least 3.2% of such budget in fiscal year 2017 and each fiscal year after. A Federal agency may exceed these minimum percentages.[4] In 2010, the SBIR program across 11 federal agencies provided over $2 Billion in grants and contracts to small U.S. businesses for research in innovation leading to commercialization.

As of February 2018[update], SBIR programs are in place at the following agencies:[5]

* Department of Agriculture (National Institute of Food and Agriculture)[6]
* Department of Commerce
* National Institute of Standards and Technology[7]
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration[8]
* Department of Defense (divided into 13 components)[9][10]
* Department of the Army
* Department of the Navy
* Department of the Air Force
* Chemical and Biological Defense
* Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
* Defense Health Agency
* Defense Logistics Agency
* Defense Microelectronics Activity
* Defense Threat Reduction Agency
* Missile Defense Agency
* National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
* Office of the Secretary of Defense
* Special Operations Command
* Department of Education (Institute of Education Sciences)[11]
* Department of Energy[12]
* Department of Health and Human Services (National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration)[13]
* Department of Homeland Security (Science and Technology Directorate, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)[14]
* Department of Transportation[15]
* Environmental Protection Agency[16]
* National Aeronautics and Space Administration[17]
* National Science Foundation[18]

## Related programs

A similar program, the Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR), uses a similar approach to the SBIR program to expand public/private sector partnerships between small businesses and nonprofit U.S. research institutions. The main difference between the SBIR and STTR programs is that the STTR program requires the company to have a partnering research institution which must be awarded a minimum of 30% of the total grant funds.[19] As of 2014 federal agencies with external R&D budgets over $1 billion were required to fund STTR programs using an annual set-aside of 0.40%.[20]

The Small Business Technology Council, a member council of the National Small Business Association, hands out the Tibbetts Award annually "to small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR achievement."[21]

Federal and State (FAST) is a program of State-based business mentoring and assistance to aid small businesses in the preparation of SBIR proposals and management of the contracts.[22]

## History

The program was established with the enactment into law of the Small Business Innovation Development Act in 1982 to award federal research grants to small businesses. The SBIR program has four original objectives:[23] to stimulate technological innovation; to use small business to meet Federal research and development needs; to foster and encourage participation by minority and disadvantaged persons in technological innovation; and to increase private sector commercialization innovations derived from Federal research and development.

The program must be periodically reauthorized by the United States Congress, but reauthorization is generally included in each new budget. The program was re-authorized through FY2017 by the 2012 Defense Authorization Act (P.L.112-81).[20][24]

Rep. Kim Young (R-CA) and Angie Craig (D-MN) introduced the SCORE for Small Business Act of 2022 to reauthorize the SBIR program as HR 447 of the 117th Congress, which reauthorizes $13.5 million for the program for two years, ensures the SBA prevents abuse and misuse of funds, and expands counseling and training programs to provide online webinars, electronic mentoring platforms, and online toolkits to better serve small businesses.[25]

Historical minimum percentages of their "extramural" R&D budgets for awards to small business concerns are:

* 2.5% of such budget in each of fiscal years 1997 through 2011;
* 2.6% of such budget in fiscal year 2012;
* 2.7% of such budget in fiscal year 2013;
* 2.8% of such budget in fiscal year 2014;
* 2.9% of such budget in fiscal year 2015;
* 3.0% of such budget in fiscal year 2016; and
* 3.2% of such budget in fiscal year 2017 and each fiscal year after.

A Federal agency may exceed these minimum percentages.[4]

## America's Seed Fund

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), collectively the Small Business Programs in the United States, are also known by their brand name America's Seed Fund. The term "America's Seed Fund" has been adopted, particularly by the SBA and NSF, as a unifying brand to promote these opportunities to entrepreneurs and innovators.[26][27]

## Evaluation

The SBIR program has been extensively evaluated, with studies generally divided into two types: descriptive (and survey-based) evaluations and causal analyses.

Descriptive evaluations have relied on surveys of participants, case studies, and administrative data. Large-scale reviews by the National Academies at agencies such as the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy have documented outcomes in terms of commercialization, follow-on funding, and agency mission support, generally finding that SBIR stimulates innovative activity that might not otherwise have occurred.[28][29] A recent development is the use of web-based approaches to measure commercialization by tracking online evidence of SBIR-funded inventions entering the market, providing a scalable alternative to traditional surveys. Applied to Department of Defense SBIR patents, this method identified commercialization signals for about one in five projects.[30]

Causal evaluations have used quasi-experimental designs to estimate the program's impact. One prominent study of the Department of Energy SBIR program exploited funding cutoffs in application rankings, finding that early-stage awards increased venture capital financing, patenting, revenue, and firm survival, while later-stage awards had weaker effects.[31]

Together, this body of research shows that SBIR funding contributes to firm innovation and commercialization, though outcomes vary across agencies and project stages.

## See also

* Stevenson–Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980
* Bayh–Dole Act

## References

1. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research". Small Business Administration. https://www.sbir.gov/.
2. ↑ O'Keeffe, Kate (2022-05-08). "Pentagon's China Warning Prompts Calls to Vet U.S. Funding of Startups" (in en-US). The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagons-china-warning-prompts-calls-to-vet-u-s-funding-of-startups-11652014803.
3. ↑ Harris, Bryant (2022-09-29). "Congress reauthorizes DoD innovation grants with new China safeguards" (in en). https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2022/09/29/congress-reauthorizes-dod-innovation-grants-with-new-china-safeguards/.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Policy Directive". 24 February 2014. http://www.sbir.gov/sites/default/files/sbir_pd_with_1-8-14_amendments_2-24-14.pdf.
5. ↑ "About SBIR" (in en). https://www.sbir.gov/about/about-sbir.
6. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR)" (in en). https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/programs/sbir-sttr.
7. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR)" (in en). NIST. https://www.nist.gov/tpo/small-business-innovation-research-program.
8. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research Program" (in en-US). http://techpartnerships.noaa.gov/SBIR.
9. ↑ "DoD SBIR/STTR Program". https://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/.
10. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Web Portal" (in en). https://sbir.defensebusiness.org/faqs.
11. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR)" (in en). https://ies.ed.gov/sbir/.
12. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)". https://science.energy.gov/sbir/.
13. ↑ "NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs" (in en). https://seed.nih.gov.
14. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Portal". https://sbir2.st.dhs.gov/portal/SBIR/.
15. ↑ "U.S. DOT's Small Business Innovation Research Program" (in en). Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. 2017-10-04. https://www.volpe.dot.gov/work-with-us/small-business-innovation-research.
16. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program" (in en). May 2015. https://www.epa.gov/sbir.
17. ↑ "SBIR/STTR". https://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
18. ↑ "NSF SBIR" (in en-US). https://seedfund.nsf.gov/.
19. ↑ Garland, Eva (2014). Winning SBIR/STTR Grants: A Ten Week Plan for Preparing Your NIH Phase I Application. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. iv. ISBN 978-1-4947-8444-7.
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs". National institutes of Health. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbirsttr_programs.htm.
21. ↑ [1]
22. ↑ "Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs at the NIDCR". Nidcr.nih.gov. 2011-03-25. https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/research/conducted-at-nidcr/technology-transfer.
23. ↑ "PUBLIC LAW 97-219". The US Senate and House of Representatives. http://history.nih.gov/research/downloads/PL97-219.pdf.
24. ↑ "National Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 2012". https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-112publ81/html/PLAW-112publ81.htm.
25. ↑ "SBIR and STTR extension act of 2022". https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ183/PLAW-117publ183.pdf.
26. ↑ "America's Seed Fund". https://www.americasseedfund.us/.
27. ↑ "America's Seed Fund powered by NSF". https://seedfund.nsf.gov/next/.
28. ↑ SBIR at the Department of Defense. National Academies Press. 2014. doi:10.17226/18821.
29. ↑ Review of the SBIR and STTR Programs at the Department of Energy. National Academies Press. 2020. doi:10.17226/25674.
30. ↑ Bottai, Carlo; de Rassenfosse, Gaétan; Raiteri, Emilio (2025). "A new approach to measuring invention commercialization: An application to the SBIR program". Research Policy 54. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2025.105302.
31. ↑ Howell, Sabrina T. (2017). "Financing Innovation: Evidence from R&D Grants". American Economic Review 107 (4): 1136–1164. doi:10.1257/aer.20150808.

## External links

* Official website

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small Business Innovation Research. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Finance:Small_Business_Innovation_Research&oldid=3848461"