Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Is the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program under threat? A recent commentary in Federal News Network suggests it could be, along with its companion, the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program.

The SBIR program was created in 1982 to serve the research and development and technology needs of the federal government by leveraging the energies, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship of American small businesses. For more than 40 years, SBIR has awarded highly competitive R&D contracts and grants to companies working on promising research, products, and solutions of interest to our national well-being and defense.

Over that time, SBIR has had tremendous impact on America’s innovative economy and produced an outsized stream of innovations, job creation, tax revenue generation and high commercialization. Studies by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, the Government Accountability Office, TechLink and others have found SBIR to be sound in concept and effective in execution. SBIR has helped developed numerous groundbreaking technologies including complementary metal oxide semiconductor cameras now used in every cell phone, global positioning satellites on a chip, mRNA technology underpinning vaccines and numerous others.  Successful alumni of the SBIR program include: Qualcomm (cell phone communications), Symantec (computer security), Amgen (biopharmaceuticals), Jarvick Heart (artificial heart), Chiron (pediatric vaccines), ABIOMED (world’s smallest heart pump), Aerovironment (unmanned aircraft) and iRobot (unmanned robotic vehicles, Roomba).

Now, according to the article, the INNOVATE Act would replace the SBIR and STTR programs’ competitive focus on creating the best new innovations with a venture capital-style model, benefiting primarily the kind of companies that VCs prefer to invest in.

It’s worth monitoring.

 

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