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Twenty universities and organizations received $100,000 grants to support R&D and small business innovation under the U.S. Small Business Administration's FAST program. The program is designed to stimulate economic development among small, high-tech businesses through federally-funded innovation and R&D programs such as the SBIR and STTR programs. The project and budget periods are for 12 months beginning Sept. 30, 2010, according to a press release.

Compiling SBIR Phase I awards and proposal statistics by state for FY09, SSTI finds the 10 states with the most awards in FY09 were California (853), Massachusetts (526), Virginia (239), New York (213), Maryland (209), Colorado (198), Texas (172), Ohio (168), Pennsylvania (154), and Florida (109). Compared to the top states for FY08, Maryland moved up one position to fifth place, swapping places with Colorado, which dropped to sixth place. Ohio edged out Pennsylvania to move up one spot into eighth position, pushing Pennsylvania down one spot from last year to ninth place.

The program has not been authorized yet, but that did not stop Congress from including $2 million in the FY10 Consolidated Appropriations Act for the Federal and State Technology Partnership Program (FAST). The funding, tucked in one sentence of the conference report for the Small Business Administration appropriations, will provide grants to state-based SBIR/STTR outreach and assistance programs on a competitive basis. Enabling legislation for FAST is contained in SBIR’s Reauthorization, which has been stalled in contentious conference negotiations for several months.

On June 18, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will markup S. 1233, a bill to reauthorize and expand the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Both programs are within weeks of expiring on July 30.

Compiling SBIR Phase I award and proposal statistics by state for fiscal year 2008, SSTI finds the 10 states with the most awards in FY 2008 were California (688), Massachusetts (476), Virginia (224), New York (195), Colorado (182), Maryland (156), Texas (140), Pennsylvania (129), Ohio (120) and Florida (102).

The proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, released last week by the House Appropriations Committee, would dramatically increase federal funding for research in several agencies required to participate in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program.&nb

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.
 

Earlier this week, 22 states and Puerto Rico were named recipients of more than $2.2 million in combined fiscal year 2004 Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST) and Rural Outreach Program (ROP) awards. All but one of the 21 FAST awards distributed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) were worth $95,000 -- they totaled nearly $1.98 million. Five ROP awards of $49,470 also were made by SBA.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) recently named 27 states winners of the second Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST) awards. At $100,000 each, the awards totaled $2.7 million. Created in December 2000 legislation that reauthorized the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, FAST provides matching funds to enable states to augment or expand their tech business assistance and SBIR outreach efforts. The FY 2002 winners are:

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has selected 10 states to receive continuation awards of up to $47,000 for the SBIR/STTR Rural Outreach Program. The three-year-old program provides matching grants to states to establish or expand programs to assist small high technology businesses to increase their participation and success in SBIR and STTR programs through training, counseling and outreach.