SSTI Digest

In perhaps the most difficult budget season of the last 25 years, where the President’s budget has proposed eliminating funding for scores of programs, both the House and Senate subcommittees with budget oversight for the Economic Development Administration (EDA) have proposed continuation funding of $50 million for FY2026 for the popular Build 2 Scale (B2S) program—referred to as the Regional Innovation Program Grants in budget language. B2S is one of three key funding priorities for SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council (IAC). Under IAC’s coordination, dozens of organizations weighed in with their members of Congress to explain the importance of the program and asked them to support it. This direct communication has taken the program from authorization but no funding to $50 million per year. While a relatively small amount of money, B2S is the largest federal pool of competitive funding to support individual, regionally designed innovation initiatives across the country.

House and Senate subcommittees with oversight for Commerce, State and Justice appropriations differ on funding recommendations for the EDA Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs program, commonly referred to as Tech Hubs. While any funding in a tight budget environment is good, the $50 million in the House version of the CJS bill or the Senate subcommittee’s $60 million is far short of Congress’s original vision for the Tech Hubs, authorized at $10 billion over ten years. Congress provided EDA $500 million in FY2025 for new Tech Hubs.

The Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) subcommittee of House Appropriations has turned against the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership in its budget recommendations for the Small Business Administration, zeroing out the only program that provides funds to help states level the competitive field of applicants for the SBIR/STTR program. While the FAST funds were decreased from the $9 million enacted in FY2024, the SBDC line item received a $10 million increase in the FSGG appropriations proposal. The corresponding Senate subcommittee has not taken any action yet regarding FAST. SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council (IAC) is working to protect the funding in the Senate bill and in the final conference bill. Broadening the distribution of SBIR awards nationally is a priority within SBIR reauthorization bills under consideration in both chambers of Congress.