SBA To Offer $1 Million for SBIR Assistance

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced plans to accept applications for funding to support selected local Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) assistance efforts. The program announcement will be available by mail beginning Monday March 22, according to Maurice Swinton, SBA point of contact.

SBA has $1 million available for the awards; the maximum size of any award will be $100,000. Each applicant must provide match of 50 cents for each federal dollar requested under the solicitation. Awards will be in the form of cooperative agreements.

Only applicants for those 23 states and 2 territories which received less than $5 million in awards to resident companies through the SBIR and STTR in FY1995 are eligible to compete for the matching funds. Eligible states and territories include: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The CBDNet announcement on March 5, says not more than one proposal may be submitted for any state. Swinton says SBA is hoping proposal development and submission will be coordinated through the Governors= offices to avoid multiple submissions for any single state.

Prospective applicants within a state, according to Swinton may include non-profit, for profit and/or government entities. More details in the program announcement should clarify the procedures for proposal development and submission.

Swinton said proposal review will be handled within the SBA and that heavy consideration will be given to the technical ability of the applicant to provide SBIR marketing, training and proposal development services to small businesses within the state. Applicants with a track record of SBIR proposal development assistance provision are likely to have a leg up on the competition, according to Swinton.

Swinton anticipates award selections will be made two weeks after receipt of the proposals on April 22.

At this point, the SBA has no plans to have the announcement available electronically on the SBA website. To be added to the mailing list to receive a   program announcement when it is released, send an email to maurice.swinton@sba.gov or leave a detailed message at 202/401-6365.