From senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!b50-afrd10.lbl.gov!user Thu Nov 25 11:18:28 EST 1993 Article: 10248 of sci.physics.fusion Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!b50-afrd10.lbl.gov!user From: JTCHEW@lbl.gov (Ad absurdum per aspera) Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.engr,sci.bio,sci.geo.geology,sci.energy,sci.physics.accelerators,sci.misc,sci.materials,sci.physics.fusion,comp.misc,sci.environment,misc.entrepreneurs Subject: DOE SBIR solicitation is out Followup-To: sci.research Date: 20 Nov 1993 00:55:12 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lines: 138 Distribution: world Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.252.158 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu sci.research:4986 sci.engr:7150 sci.bio:16000 sci.geo.geology:7262 sci.energy:20071 sci.physics.accelerators:582 sci.misc:9464 sci.materials:2981 sci.physics.fusion:10248 comp.misc:22619 sci.environment:37187 misc.entrepreneurs:9786 The US Department of Energy has put out the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Solicitation or call for proposals. The closing date is 15 February. Here is some unofficial general information on SBIR and what it means to researchers and small businesses. Happy collaboration; respond to me by e-mail or with a followup to sci.research (or, better yet, call one of the contacts below). Joe "Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley" SBIR Basics ----------- SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) is a program, authorized by an act of Congress, in which small businesses are given money to conduct R&D on highly specific topics related to agency needs. The money comes in two phases. Phase 1, a half-fiscal-year program, brings up to $75k. Projects that make the grade for Phase II can get up to $750k (up from $500k) in a full FY. (The otherwise-funded epilogue is called Phase III; a report is required on how it all came out.) The money comes from a few-percent tax on programs. Eleven different agencies participate independent of each other; the total pot is about $1.1 billion this year. The canonical source of SBIR information is the Small Business Administration Office of Innovation, Research, and Technology Mail Code 6470 409 Third Street SW Washington, DC 20416 800/8-ASK-SBA (fax 202/205-7064; something, presumably a TTY, for the hearing impaired 202/205-7333) Ask for the proposal preparation guide (currently publication number SBIR T1, as far as I know) and the current Pre-Solicitation Announcement and any current Solicitation (currently DOE/ER-0598 in the case of DOE). Individual agencies also publish SBIR-related information. The proposer must be a US-owned small business, "small" being defined as <500 employees without regard to revenue or income. Unlike in some governmental programs, there is no preference for woman- or minority-owned businesses in SBIR; this is strictly a merit-based competition. It is OK to submit proposals to multiple agencies, even on similar topics, if this is acknowledged in each proposal. Each agency does things somewhat differently. The rest of this message is specific to DOE. SBIR in DOE ---------- In DOE, there is one, single, non-subdivided pot of SBIR money. The DOE's annual SBIR solicitation typically contains about 37 topics, of which three or so are from the Division of Nuclear Physics. Some 2000 proposals compete for this money. About 8-10% of Phase 1 proposals are funded; some 40% of those make it to Phase II funding. Obviously the competition is quite stiff. The proposals are peer-reviewed by inside and outside referees; program managers do not have sole, final authority, although they do have considerable input. Quality of proposed work and responsiveness to the agency needs stated in the Solicitation are the two biggest and most common shortcomings. (Responsiveness or lack thereof is a leitmotif of proposal evaluation in general.) They like to see clear statements of the work and its benefits. A concise demonstration of principal investigators' qualifications, a clear work plan, and references are also big pluses. An important point for those who take their proposalmanship seriously: Feedback, including anonymous review comments, is available for both winning and losing proposals. Asking for a debriefing is always in order: you can figure out how to reconfigure a losing effort, or shore up your skills if you won mostly by luck. The contact in DOE is: Mrs. Kay Etzler, Spokesperson c/o SBIR Program Manager US Department of Energy, ER-16 Washington, DC 20585 301/903-5867 Where Do Ideas Come From? ------------------------- Mostly, from us in the research community and from the agency. Obviously there are many more agency needs than can be accommodated among the few tens of topics in each year's Solicitation. If you have an idea, the thing to do is to sell it to your program patrons in DOE. In parallel, but especially after it makes the Solicitation, talk it up with your friends in industry. For fairness, try to disseminate the idea as widely as is feasible. DOE is not allowed to release the exact contents or wording of the Solicitation until the official publication date so that everyone can get a fair start, but it is understood generally that we often work in a sole-source or few-sources environment. What Does the Funding Cycle Look Like? ----------------------------------- More or less like this: October -> winter. Monies set aside. Solicitation released. Early March. Solicitation closed (proposal deadline). April. Peer review of proposals. Early May. Review comments back; selection cycle begins. By July: Awards made. September: Gentlemen, start your spending. Novemberish: Early start on Phase II proposals (may be DOE only). What's In It for Us? ----------------- Immediately, nothing -- the money is available only to businesses, not to us, though I'm told that some of it can be funneled back to a lab as Work For Others or as matching funds in a Cooperative Research And Development Agreement. So why should we go out of our way to seed ideas for SBIR projects and encourage our private-sector buddies to participate? Because in the longer view, there can be one or more positive outcomes for us: ¥ We get non-SBIR funding under a CRADA for "Phase III" or for some topic that grows out of the SBIR research. ¥ A problem faced by one of our projects or programs gets solved. ¥ A vendor of something we need learns a new skill and/or proves to be competent and reasonable to deal with. (Or, in the sadder-but- wiser department, proves to be incompetent or unreliable before being given a lot of money or placed in the critical path of a project.) Now What? --------- In summary, SBIR may look like a lot of paperwork and hassle for a small amount of money. However, it can also be the seed of technical ideas and business relationships that continue to grow. We'll keep you apprised of Solicitations as they come out. Meanwhile, continue working with your private-sector collaborators, push to get your ideas into the Solicitation, and perhaps increase your contact with Headquarters by volunteering as an SBIR peer reviewer.