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An Assessment of the Small Business Innovation Research Program
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As the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program approached its twentieth year of operation, the U.S. Congress requested that the National Research Council (NRC) conduct a “comprehensive study of how the SBIR program has stimulated technological innovation and used small businesses to meet federal research and development needs,” and to make recommendations on improvements to the program.1 Mandated as a part of SBIR’s renewal in 2000, the NRC study is to assess the SBIR program as administered at the five federal agencies that together make up 96 percent of SBIR program expenditures. The agencies, in order of program size, are DoD, NIH, NASA, DoE, and NSF. The objective of the study is not to consider if SBIR should exist or not—Congress has already decided affirmatively on this question. Rather, the NRC Committee conducting this study is charged with providing assessment-based findings to improve public understanding of the program as well as recommendations to improve the program’s effectiveness. In addition to setting out the study objectives, this report defines key concepts, identifies potential metrics and data sources, and describes the range of methodological approaches being developed by the NRC to assess the SBIR program. Following some historical background on the SBIR program, this introduction outlines the basic parameters of this NRC study.
Division of Policy and Global Affairs - Organizational Body
0-309-54601-X
NONE
Human Resource management
English
2004
1-125
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