Innovation Soup: SBIR/STTR

Mark BlanchardTechnology Development Advisor

VT Small Business Development Center

VtEPSCoR/VGN

Grant Writing Workshop

June 5, 2007

A Rich Alphabet Soup

SBA VDED UVMOSP VT PTAC EPSCoR

SBIRDoD DOE DHSDHHS/NIH USDA DO-EDNSF DOT NISTNASA NOAA DOCEPA

SBIR – No Ordinary Acronym…

S – Set aside for Small business – 60% have < 25 employees, most common is 2 to 9 people– 50% have annual sales < $500,000

B – Grantee must be a for-profit Business I – Funds high risk Innovation R&D projects

R – Funds over $2.2 Billion in FY 2007 for Research

SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH

Federally Funded R&D

“Regular Research” funds the Research Institution– Bigger, Longer, Broader Grants & Contracts– IP Ownership per RI policy

Contracts to “Primes” (usually big firms aka BWB) Small Business Concern: SBIR/STTR

– Intellectual Property Value Captured by SBC– Store of Value for Principals– Innovation hits the Market

SBIR New Ingredient – For Profit Intent

What’s Different Vs. Regular Research

New Ingredient – For Profit Intent

What’s Different Vs. Regular Research– Funds go to Small Business

New Ingredient – For Profit Intent

What’s Different Vs. Regular Research– Funds go to Small Business– May be less money: Phase I + Phase II ~ $850K

New Ingredient – For Profit Intent

What’s Different Vs. Regular Research– Funds go to Small Business– May be less money: Phase I + Phase II ~ $850K– Elapsed period ~ 3 Years

New Ingredient – For Profit Intent

What’s Different Vs. Regular Research– Funds go to Small Business– May be less money: Phase I + Phase II ~ $850K– Elapsed period ~ 3 Years

Put Something on MarketWhere it can do good

Same Program, Two Flavors

SBIR – 2.5% of federal agency R&D budgets set aside

specifically for small business.– 14 federal agencies participate.

STTR– Smaller program - 0.3% of federal agency R&D

budgets and 5 agencies.– Requires small business collaboration with

research institution.

Long Prep Time

Meals Vs. Snacks– Rigorous Process for Significant Purpose– Outcome has some uncertainty

Strategic Vs. Tactical Time Frame– Thinking 3+ years ahead

– Fits Strategic Plan

Three Layer Cake, Sort Of

Phase I – Proof of Concept Study– $70,000 - $150,000– 6 months

Phase II – Substantive R&D– Up to $750,000– 2 years

Phase III – Commercialization– You’re on your own (sort of). Typically private or non-SBIR

government sources used to get to market.

Spicing up Tech Transfer

Tried & True Commercialization Recipe To fortify your Research Impact, try SBIR Mix with your regular research, Use the SBC as distribution vehicle.

Pretty Much the Same Formats

Proposals Same Look & Feel for NSF & NIH DoD, NASA, Others: Same Rigor Generally Electronic Submission

Pretty Much the Same Formats

Proposals Same Look & Feel for NSF & NIH DoD, NASA, Others: Same Rigor Generally Electronic Submission

But you need to anticipate 2 New Questions…

Let’s Say You’re a

Fine Research Greyhound

And You’re after a

Significant Research Objective

#1

#1

#1

#1

#1

What are you going to do with it?

?

??

#2… As the Marketing Types Say,

Will the Dogs Eat the Dog Food?

?

Commercialization Recipe Is…

#1 What you’re going to do with your technology when it looks like it will work

#2 The needs it fills such that people will use it

These get lightly stirred into your proposal in Phase I, heavily in Phase II.

Their Recipe or Yours?

“Acquisition” Oriented Agencies:DoD, NASA, DOT

“Grantee Initiated” Agencies:NIH, NSF, USDA

Others are in between

For the Birds … Early Birds

SBIR funds early-stage proof of concept You have to know your stuff, but You don’t need a prototype-------------------------------------------------------- SBIR does not fund existing products SBIR is not for marketing

Techniques

1. Define your “Research Hypothesis”2. Identify the Nuts, the Crunchy Bits3. Consider Variant Mixtures4. Pick a Solicitation & Start Process Early5. Corral collaborators6. Take a rough cut at a Budget7. Get it down any way you can, Iterate.

Critical Seasoning Recap

A Taste for the Market A Glimmer of Commerce A Pinch of Desire to Participate A Dose of Delivery Reserved Tasty Bits of IP

Once you get a taste

Layer SBIRs from the same or different Agencies; Watch out for Overlapping

Stir in with Regular Research Grants Use as part of your core R&D funding Entice partners Intellectual Property owned by the Enterprise

Vt Smorgasbord of Winners

From 1984, 60 Vermont businesses won over 200 Phase I & 67 Phase II grants worth $50 million.

They come in all shapes & sizes– ConceptsNREC – Rocket Fuel Turbo Booster Pumps– Beeken & Parsons, - Character Wood Furniture– Microstrain Inc. – Remote Communication with embedded

sensors– Precision Bioassay – Advanced Statistical Methods….and they come from all around the State.

Get Cookin’ withVT EPSCoR SBIR Phase 0

Pre-seed grant program for prelim. data Up to $10,000 Solicitation for 2007 closed mid-March. Try

next year. Since 1992, 140 awards worth $1 Million www.uvm.edu/~EPSCoR

Piqued your appetite?There’s help at the Barbie

VT SBIR/STTR Help Resources– Office of Sponsored Research:

www.uvm.edu/~ospuvm/

– Mark Blanchard, VtSBDC Tech Advisor mblancha@vtsbdc.org (802) 281-5236

Paul Hale, Ph.D., VT Technology Council Paul.hale@uvm.edu

– VT-PTAC at Thinkvermont.com

SBIRWORLD.com, ZYN.com & Agency Websites