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From page 172... ... Historically, this amounts to 1.4 issued patents per employee. Patents and the fees they generate are the central focus of Faraday's business strategy, and the company investigates citations by other companies of its patents to obtain knowledge about potential customers. Read the entire page →
From page 173... ... Publications therefore fill two important roles in the study of SBIR programs: • First, they provide an indication of the quality of the research being conducted with program funds. In this case, more than half of the funded projects were of sufficient value to generate at least one peer-reviewed publication. Read the entire page →
From page 174... ... 4.6.3 SBIR and universities According to agency and Congressional staff, one of the implicit, though not formal objectives, of the SBIR program is that it support the transfer of knowledge from universities to the commercial marketplace. This transfer can happen in many different ways. Read the entire page →
From page 175... ... 52 Interview with Michael Squillante, June 10 2005 53 See ATS Case Study, NIH Report UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 176... ... The potential savings far outweighs the commercial value of the tracking devices. See the Savi Technology case study in Appendix D of National Research Council, An Assessment of the SBIR Program at the Department of Defense, op. Read the entire page →
From page 177... ... 55 After results were normalized to eliminate the most favorable and most negative responses UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 179... ... For example, each major acquisition program has an SBIR Liaison officer, who works with SBIR program managers within DoD, and with the SBIR contractor community. Their job is to provide a mechanism through which contractors can communicate with end customers in acquisition programs. Read the entire page →
From page 180... ... SBIR is funded through a set aside of 2.5% of agency extramural research, and some senior agency staff have claimed that they could find better ways to spend that money. To address these concerns, some agencies and some components have designed their SBIR programs to tighten the link between the results of the SBIR research and the agency unit that has been "taxed" to fund the SBIR program. Read the entire page →
From page 181... ... Since about 40% of DoD Phase I winners are new to the program does, however, suggest that new or unconnected firms do have significant opportunities to participate in the SBIR program. It is also worth noting that while firms with long connections to DoD are best placed to help design topics friendly to their specific capacities, those long connections are in many cases, according to agency staff,4 the 3 The Air Force also allocates the number of funded Phase I projects. Read the entire page →
From page 182... ... awarded to proposals submitted to that program area's technical topics is equal to that program area's contribution to the SBIR set-aside. Although the dollar amount is the primary consideration, the number of awards each program area gets - in both Phase I and Phase II - is also roughly proportional to the funding it provides SBIR awards. Read the entire page →
From page 183... ... About six months before the fall publication of the annual program solicitation, the DOE SBIR Program Manager sends a "call for topics" memo to all Portfolio Managers responsible for technical program areas within DOE. This call also goes to all technical topic managers (TM's) Read the entire page →
From page 184... ... Essentially, they add a parallel structure within the NIH SBIR program through which the IC's and the agency as a whole can fund their own research priorities. PA's/RFA's are announcements of research funding areas that the IC expects to prioritize. Read the entire page →
From page 185... ... For example, in Sweden, approximately half of Vinnova's8 research funding is distributed to agency programs focused on the research needs of specific industries. The other half is allocated to proposals for research initiated by companies.9 8 VINNOVA is the Swedish national technology agency 9 Source: www.vinnova.se UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 186... ... Some, such as DoD's site, 10 Agencies have different titles for their primary SBIR program manager. Read the entire page →
From page 187... ... In general, these activities are the responsibility of the SBIR Program Coordinator at the agency, rather than other agency staff. They are also funded out of general agency funds, as the governing SBIR legislation does not permit programs do use SBIR funds for purposes other than awards (and a limited amount of commercialization assistance - see below) Read the entire page →
From page 188... ... Chapter 8 – State Indicators. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c8/c8.cfm UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 189... ... 5.3.3.3 Applications from women-owned and minority businesses Congress has mandated that one objective of the SBIR program is to increase support for women- and minority-owned businesses. Agencies track participation by these demographic groups in their programs. Read the entire page →
From page 190... ... 13 13 www.ipphila.com UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 191... ... 5.4 Award Selection 5.4.1 Introduction SBA Guidelines require that an agency should use the same selection process for its SBIR program as it does for its other R&D programs; as award selection processes differ across agencies, so do selection procedures for SBIR. The selection process is critical for the long-run success of any government award program. Read the entire page →
From page 193... ... 17 As review panels are known at NIH UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 194... ... On the positive side, strong outside review generates a range of benefits. These include: • the strong positive endorsement for applications that comes from formal peer review UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 195... ... 18 One example of conflict of interest may rise when the commercialization reviewer has a similar or competitive product planned for or already in the market UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 196... ... Resubmissions are the standard mechanism for improvement and/or appeal at NIH, and about 1/3rd of all awards are eventually made after at least one resubmission. Awardees noted in interviews that this capacity to resubmit enhances perceptions of fairness.19 5.4.3.2 DoD DoD's SBIR program appears regulation-driven (as is natural at a procurement-oriented agency) Read the entire page →
From page 197... ... 20 As of June 15 2006 UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 198... ... Implementation. It appears that all the NASA Centers operate the selection procedures in similar ways, as their end-products must be sent to HG for review by the SBIR Program Office and by representatives of the Mission Directorates. Read the entire page →
From page 199... ... Hypothetically, having one awarding officer making instant decisions would be highly efficient, but would be neither fair nor necessarily effective. Still, it is possible to construct indicators or measures of efficiency from the perspective of both the applicant and the agency: UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 200... ... Each agency uses its own home grown electronic submission system, even though the existing systems at DoD and NASA have been highly regarded by recipients.22 22 Case study interviews UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 201... ... However, it is possible to identify some shared functions: UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 202... ... = SBIR Program Coordinator or similar function Outsiders = outside technical reviewers Quant. = quantitative (numerical) Read the entire page →
From page 203... ... indicate that at least 1/3rd of awards go to new winners every year, and interviewees stated that the program was sufficiently open to new ideas and companies. These comments did not appear in relation to other agencies' SBIR programs Efficiency. Read the entire page →
From page 204... ... • No gap funding mechanisms between Phase I and Phase II • No Fast Track program • No Phase IIB funding UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 205... ... Two mechanisms appear to have emerged to provide funds during the gap between the conclusion of Phase I and the start Phase II funding. 23 Telephone interview with SOCOM SBIR manager, June 8 2005 UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 206... ... developed a program called "co-investment," under which applicants who could demonstrate UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 208... ... P.66-67 28 To address the efficacy and impact of the DoD Fast Track program, the SBIR program management has asked the Academies to update the 2000 study. That study found that the program was having a positive effect on commercialization. Read the entire page →
From page 210... ... The "standard" awards from the SBIR program, as defined in the SBA Guidelines, are: - Phase I: $100,000 for 6 months, to cover feasibility studies; and - Phase II: up to $750,000 for 2 years to fund research leading toward a product. No agency follows these guidelines precisely. Read the entire page →
From page 214... ... 30 GAO-06-565 Small Business Innovation Research p.21 UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 216... ... Median award sizes have changed less. Beyond larger awards, NIH also offers longer awards, as Phase II is sometimes continued beyond 2 years. Read the entire page →
From page 217... ... 5.6.3.1 Conclusions These trends indicate that the median and average size of NIH SBIR awards are both rising, with the average award size now comfortably exceeding the statutory limit. Large awards have been made in recent years and multi-year awards have also become increasingly common. Read the entire page →
From page 218... ... However, discussions with awardees who have received administrative supplements suggest that agency staff have considerable discretion. The data indicates that the trend for both the number and size of supplementary awards are growing at NIH: UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 219... ... Two models can be identified: • the NSF matching funds model (also used in parts of DoD, where it known as Phase II+) • the NIH focus on support for addressing regulatory requirements UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 220... ... Of these, 27 were for more than $200,000: Figure 5-8 Distribution of NSF Phase IIB Awards 30 27 23 25 20 15 10 7 5 1 0 0 >20k 20-50k 51-202k 203-249k 250K+ Phase IIB funding is highly conditional: UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →
From page 221... ... Although NASA does not have a Phase II plus program, agency staff have indicated that Phase II award decisions themselves can be influenced by the existence of matching nonSBIR funds from a NASA research center. 31 http://www.aro.army.mil/arowash/rt/sbir/sbir_phaseii.htm UNEDITED PROOFS Read the entire page →

From page 172...

... Historically, this amounts to 1.4 issued patents per employee. Patents and the fees they generate are the central focus of Faraday's business strategy, and the company investigates citations by other companies of its patents to obtain knowledge about potential customers.