SBIR Reauthorization: Improving the Impact of FAST: An Editorial

Last week, SSTI reported the draft SBIR Reauthorization bill circulated by the House Small Business Committee in mid-March included language that would reauthorize the Federal & State Technology Partnership (FAST) for two years at its current $10 million level. FAST was created with the 2000 SBIR reauthorization and received appropriations through the Small Business Administration (SBA) for three of the next four years.
 
In its first iteration between 2000-2004, FAST received mixed reviews. It could be made better through the present reauthorization process. Before that, however, an important and often overlooked point must be made: there is little to no criticism with the underlying concept or mission of FAST to provide financial support to state and local efforts to promote the federal SBIR program and improve the quality of small business participation in SBIR across the country.
 
That lack of criticism can easily be attributed to the fact that promotion of the opportunities afforded small tech firms through SBIR and the provision of high-quality proposal development assistance does make a difference in the number of competitive proposals received from the geographic area served by the outreach and assistance efforts. In its assessment of the SBIR program, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that despite the small dollar amounts of the FAST awards, the short-lived program did appear to make a difference.
 
FAST did develop a sizable collection of critics, however, including many grantees. The situation after the first three funding cycles was so dire, in fact, that there was little fight for appropriations in fiscal year 2005 when the Administration did not request more funding. FAST has remained on the books as an unfunded Small Business Administration (SBA) program ever since.
 
The conclusion: good idea, poorly executed.
 
In February 2008, SSTI convened conference calls with its core state members to develop suggestions regarding how FAST could be improved. Past criticisms essentially could be divided into two groups: 1.) variable quality of FAST grantee service delivery and performance; and 2.) administrative/oversight issues at SBA. There are easy and affordable ways to address each set of concerns.
 
In this issue of the Digest, we highlight some recommendations addressing the first group of concerns dealing with grantee quality, including:

• Develop an SBIR Assistance Training and Certification Program. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of private and public entities professing to be qualified to provide assistance regarding SBIR proposals and the commercialization of resulting technologies. The quality and success rates of these service providers vary significantly. SSTI believes in-depth educational workshops and seminars should be developed to better train staff and help link SBIR programs with other commercialization efforts. To be effective, such a training program must be developed with state, federal and private business cooperation.
• Disseminate Timely and Accurate Information Regarding SBIR Winners and Applicants. The fact that this remains an issue 25 years into SBIR’s existence is quite telling of the ineffectual oversight SBA provides the program. The draft bill acknowledges SBA’s poor performance only indirectly by requiring the participating federal agencies to release the information individually. All of this information should easily reside in a single, common and open website. Such information is critical to assessing the effectiveness of state SBIR outreach and assistance efforts and to determining with some accuracy the geographic and demographic spread of interest and participation in SBIR.
• Sustain SBIR Outreach Efforts through Larger, Longer-lived, Competitive FAST Grants. To provide continuity in planning and staffing of FAST-supported activities, FAST awards should be for multi-year periods of no less than three years. Awards of up to $250,000 per year should be made competitively, avoiding the previous SBA practice of awarding equal FAST grant amounts to all recipients regardless of proposal quality and program impact. The reauthorization level should be increased to $20 million per year to allow more useful multiyear grants to a greater number of states - increasing the opportunity to expand SBIR participation and speed the commercialization of SBIR-developed technologies.
• Integrate SBIR Assistance with Existing State Technology Commercialization Programs. FAST should include a requirement that proposals from states convincingly demonstrate: 1.) The proposed services and activities will reach either an underperforming geographic area or underrepresented population group (measured by number of SBIR awards) and/or improve the commercialization success of technologies developed with federal SBIR funds; 2.) How the services to be offered complement and are integrated into the existing public-private innovation support system for the targeted region or population; and 3.) How the applicant will measure the effectiveness and impact of the proposed services and activities.

In next week’s Digest, we will consider effective ways to address criticism of FAST administrative issues at SBA.