The Small Business Innovation Research program, and the related Small Business Technology Transfer program, were created to help small companies work with government agencies and large contractors to bring new technologies to market.
The program is set to currently operating under a continuing resolution (CR) with re-authorization due for re-upping on March 20. Now, the House and the Senate have reached a compromise on legislation that will amend PL 110-235 (the current CR) to extend the SBIR Program from March 20, 2009 to July 31, 2009. This means that there will be yet another urgent need for re-authorization in just a few months.
On another front, SBIR availability appears to have dodged a bullet after President Barack Obama [1]’s stimulus package lacked support for the SBIR program. The current stimulus bill has a section granting $7.5 billion to the National Institutes of Health [2] to fund research. But that funding comes with a stipulation that it cannot be used for certain projects, including the SBIR program (15 U.S.C. 638(f)(1) and 15 U.S.C. 638(n)(1)) — a stipulation added by the NIH.
The SBIR and STTR programs have provided small tech companies with more than $26 billion in funding since the programs were launched in 1982. Nearly 18,000 firms have participated, with 6,244 currently active in at least one project. Those companies have also obtainedmore than 67,500 patents. SBIR accounts for over half of all the federal R&D awards that small companies receive.
The Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship (SBE) Chair, Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and ranking member Olympia Snowe (R-ME), sent a letter to Mr. Charles E. Johnson [3], Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services to express their concern over the $8 billion in ARRA funding exempted from SBIR. They are asking for a response from Secretary Johnson by March 24, 2009.
Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) have sent their own letter to NIH stating:
Thus, notwithstanding passage of the ARRA, HHS remains responsible for allocating 2.5 percent and .3 percent of its research and development funds to SBIR and STTR, respectively. Since the ARRA provided $8.2 billion to the NIH for research and development, HHS must ensure that an amount equivalent to 2.8 percent of this total, or $229 million, is allocated to these two programs. We look forward to HHS’s explanation of how it will meet these requirements.
Basically, the NIH claims that there are not enough “high quality” SBIR proposals from small businesses to fund with ARRA dollars before the expiration date. The NIH also claims that it can use some ARRA monies for SBIR/STTR where appropriate, and contend that their new NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research, will have $200m available for 200 or more grants up to $1m each (see here [4]).
For now, SBIR money should remain available.