Eleven federal agencies with extramural research and development (R&D) budgets that exceed $100 million are required to allocate 2.8 percent of their R&D budget to SBIR. Each agency following congressional guidelines, administers its program. The agencies release solicitations with R&D topics. Awards are made on a competitive basis to small businesses.
Each year, Federal agencies with extramural research and development (R&D) budgets that exceed $1 billion are required to reserve 0.3% of the extramural research budget for STTR awards to small businesses. These agencies designate R&D topics and accept proposals. Currently, five agencies participate in the STTR program:
It is important that your solicitation meets the needs of the federal agency and responds to a specific agency topic. Some agencies are grant agencies while others are contract agencies. Granting agencies typically have broad topics while contracting agencies are narrower in scope and well-defined. Granting agencies typically are not interested in using the product developed under the SBIR award, however, contract agencies may be interested in being your customer once you finish the R&D stage. To learn about what type of SBIR projects the agency is interested in funding, you can research the prior awards funded by each agency. This information is available from the agency websites and also online at www.sbir.gov. By search closed topics and prior awards, you can get learn about the federal agency and about the state of the art.
