SBIR/STTR
NEWS & INFORMATION
July 2007
1) DoD SBIR 2007.3 Solicitation Pre-released
2) Department of
Agriculture (USDA)
3) NASA SBIR/STTR 2007
Phase 1 Solicitations
4) NIH Announces New Resource for Advancing
Innovative Technologies Toward Commercialization
5) Department
of Energy (DOE) – Non-SBIR/STTR Funding Opportunity
6) Proposal-Writing
Tips from the Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.
7) SBIR Solicitations Currently Open
8) STTR Solicitations Currently Open
9) Upcoming Solicitations
1) DoD SBIR 2007.3 Solicitation Pre-released
The DoD SBIR 2007.3 solicitation was pre-released at http://www.dodsbir.net/solicitation on July 19, 2007. The Air Force, Navy, MDA, and NGA invite small businesses to submit proposals under this solicitation. During the pre-release period, which ends on August 19, you may contact the topic authors directly (contact information is listed with the topic) to ask technical questions about specific solicitation topics. The DoD will begin accepting proposals on August 20, 2007 and will close to proposals on September 19, 2007 at 6am EST. Plan ahead and submit your proposal early to avoid the risk of website inaccessibility due to heavy usage on the final day.
Technical Q&A through SITIS
Once DoD begins accepting proposals on August 20, 2007, no further direct contact between proposers and topic authors is allowed, but proposers may submit written questions through the SBIR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS), in which the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing. SITIS closes to new questions on September 5, 2007. All questions and answers will be posted through September 19, 2007. All proposers are advised to monitor SITIS at http://www.dodsbir.net/sitis during the solicitation period for questions and answers and other information relevant to the topic under which they are proposing.
DoD SBIR Help Desk
If you have any questions please contact the DoD SBIR Help Desk at 866-724-7457 or by email at sbirhelp@brtrc.com
2) Department of Agriculture (USDA)
USDA invites
science-based small business firms to submit applications for its FY 2008
SBIR Program.
Applications are sought in 12 topic areas:
1) forests and related resources;
2) plant production and protection - biology;
3) animal production and protection;
4) soil and water resources;
5) food science and nutrition;
6) rural development;
7) aquaculture;
8) biofuels and biobased products;
9) marketing and trade;
10) animal manure management;
11) small and mid-size farms; and
12) plant production and protection - engineering.
In addition to topic areas described, USDA recognizes Agriculturally related Manufacturing Technology and Alternative and Renewable Energy as two cross-cutting priorities with relevance to all topic areas described in this RFA. USDA encourages applicants--as appropriate--to address these priorities within their proposals for submission to one of the topic areas described later in this section. Special consideration of applications that address one of these priorities may be provided, so long as the proposal falls within the scope of work solicited by one of the topic areas described in this RFA.
Approximately $18.9 million is expected to be available for Phase I awards of
up to $80,000. These awards will normally
have a project period of up to eight months; however, longer grant periods of
up to 20 months may be considered.
Applications deadline is Sept. 5, 2007.
For more information, call 202-401-4002, or Email sbir@csrees.usda.gov or
visit: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/sbir.cfm
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3) NASA
SBIR/STTR 2007 Solicitations
NASA has posted solicitations
for their 2007 SBIR and STTR Phase 1 program.
The solicitations opened on July 6, 2007 and deadline for submission is September 6, 2007 at 5:00 p.m. EDT.
The solicitation is available at http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/sbirsttr2007/solicitation/index.html
4) NIH Announces New Resource
for Advancing Innovative Technologies Toward Commercialization
From: http://www.pharmalive.com/
Pipeline to Partnerships (P2P), aimed at furthering the development of NIH’s
licensed technologies and technologies funded
through the NIH SBIR & STTR programs.
This new P2P initiative, developed jointly between the NIH Office of Technology
Transfer (OTT) and the NIH SBIR and STTR
Program Office, provides a virtual space where NIH licensees and NIH SBIR/STTR
awardees can showcase their
technologies and product development for an audience of potential strategic
partners, investors, and licensees.
NIH is continually
developing ways to help new biomedical technologies succeed and foster their
development and
entry into the marketplace.
In the last decade, many
successful biomedical products have come from pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies
that licensed early-stage technologies from NIH, said Mark Rohrbaugh, Ph.D.,
J.D., Director of the NIH Technology Transfer
Office. Faced with less demand for early-stage technologies, this pipeline
provides an avenue for potential partners to find
NIH licensees along the spectrum of product development to share costs,
infrastructure, and expertise as the research and
development progresses to later stage clinical trials.
Health-related products
that grew out of this process include Velcade® (bortezomib), a treatment for
multiple myeloma, and
Synagis® (palivizumab), a treatment to help prevent Respiratory Syncytial Virus
(RSV) infection in babies and young children.
This exciting NIH P2P
initiative can also help NIH SBIR/STTR awardees that face similar challenges in
moving their innovations
along the development pipeline. These small companies simply cant go it alone,
said Jo Anne Goodnight, Coordinator of
NIHs SBIR/STTR programs. Given the expensive pre-clinical and clinical studies
necessary to bring novel products to the market
and the patient, many of these projects need additional financing, licensing
deals, or strategic partnerships. We see the P2P
database as an important resource to help small businesses make a successful
leap from discovery to commercialization
of products resulting from innovative biomedical and behavioral research.
A pipeline of
technologies available for partnering is now available on the OTT Web site http://www.ott.nih.gov/P2P as an
index searchable by category of technology and stage of development. Once a
technology of interest is identified, the
interested party is directed to the licensee/awardee developing the technology.
All submissions to the site by the licensees
and grantees will be voluntary. Although NIH will approve all postings, NIH
will not be involved directly in the partnering activities.
By providing this
resource, NIH is advancing its mission to further the development of its own
licensed technologies or those
for which it has provided SBIR/STTR funding. This Web site provides a new
avenue by which NIH can facilitate more rapid
development of products for the benefit of public health.
The Office of the
Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH,
which includes 27 Institutes and Centers.
This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities
of all NIH components. The Office of the
Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific
areas of research throughout NIH.
Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/
The National Institutes
of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — is comprised of 27
Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and
Human Services. It is the primary
Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational
medical research, and investigates the causes,
treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases.
For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
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5) Department
of Energy (DOE) – Non-SBIR/STTR Funding
Opportunity
DOE invites
(PV) products and development processes. This funding opportunity
encourages universities to partner with
partners currently positioned to achieve Solar America Initiative (SAI) goals
by 2015. The primary goal of the SAI is to reduce
the levelized cost of energy to below 10 cents per kWh while scaling up
manufacturing capacity to supply 5-10 GW of domestic
PV installations. Up to $10 million is expected to be available to support the
first year of 15-25 new grant awards having a project
period of up to three years and a cost-sharing requirement of at least 20
percent. Awards ranging from $300,000 to $500,000 per
year are anticipated. Eligibility is restricted to domestic colleges and
universities accredited by an accrediting agency or state
approval agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education as a “reliable
authority as to the quality of postsecondary education”
within the meaning of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. Applications are due Sept. 12, 2007.
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6) Proposal-Writing
Tips from the
SBIR Proposal Writing Basics: Propose Innovations, But Don’t
Propose Innovatively
Copyright © Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.
Sometimes
proposers to the SBIR Program make a simply but potentially costly
mistake. That mistake comes when they see
“innovation” in the title of program, and they conclude that they should
present their proposal in an innovative fashion.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The idea in SBIR is to present your innovative idea (for solving a problem or
exploiting an opportunity) in a very conventional way.
That conventional way is specified in the instructions in each agency’s Phase 1
solicitation. It generally includes a specified set
of sections into which the proposal should be divided, and usually requires
that you include all sections in the order requested
(even if they do not all apply to your proposal). It specifies nit picks
like margin widths, minimal font sizes, whether graphics can
be included in color, and (as electronic transmission of proposals becomes more
commonplace) what format the file containing
the proposal should be in.
Who cares about all this nit picky stuff, you say,? I’ve got such brilliant
ideas that the reviewers will overlook such meaningless
requirements. Such logic ignores two important fundamentals of the SBIR
proposal review process.
First, administrative staffs often review proposals to see that all the nit
picks have been followed BEFORE they send the
proposals on for review of their technical merits. Therefore, if you fail
to comply with all of the nit picks, your proposal
may never get a technical review. Second, technical reviewers don’t like
to wade through a proposal that is oddly or
“creatively” organized, trying to find key sections. In other words, your
creativity in organizing the proposal may lead to
a reviewer getting very frustrated with it, which certainly will not help your
chances of getting funded.
With this in mind, here are a few tips
on organizing your proposal:
Follow the instructions. Seems obvious, but
our review of proposals suggests many SBIR (and STTR) proposal writers
fail to pay attention to the requirements that are clearly spelled out in the instructions
section of each agency’s solicitation.
2. Organize the proposal as specified in the solicitation. We don’t
always agree with the order that a particular agency
wants you to present the proposal material, but the Golden Rule applies:
The agency has the gold, so you need to follow
its rules about the order of the various sections.
3. Title sections using the titles in the instructions. If an
agency asks you to include a section called “Identification and
Significance of the Problem or
same title. Why? Because it makes it easier for a reviewer to
identify a section that he or she is looking for.
4. Use other wording found in the instructions. If the instructions
ask you to list the questions that need to be answered to
prove feasibility, then we recommend that you include a sentence that reads
something like “The questions that we will
need to answer to prove feasibility are:” Why? Because it makes it easier
for the reviewer to see that you have
addressed this requirement that is specified in the instructions.
5. Include every mandatory section in the proposal. Even if it is a
section that is not relevant to your proposal,
if the instructions indicate that it should be included, then include it.
Simply write the title, followed by “not applicable”
or “n/a?” or some similar response. Or you may choose to elaborate
briefly on why the section isn’t applicable:
for example, “Our firm does not propose to use vertebrate animals for this
project, and therefore this section is not applicable.”
6. When in doubt, ask. If you aren’t certain whether a particular
section is mandatory or optional, or whether a particular
form, section or checklist applies to your proposal, then call or email the
agency’s SBIR/STTR program manager and ask.
We know of a number of proposals that were tossed out as non responsive
recently because a necessary form was omitted
or a question on the cover page was answered incorrectly.
7. Follow directions and limitations on
graphics. Most agencies allow graphics as part of your proposal, and
generally they
are a good thing to include. However, some agencies have limitations on
the use of color, size of fonts in graphics, and other things.
And consider how elaborate or color-rich photographs may impact the size of the
files you have to upload to submit your
proposal to the agency, especially if you tend to be a last minute uploader.
8. Avoid tricky formatting. Whether it is doing two column formats
or using an unusual font, these tricks often backfire on you.
Again, keep the innovation to your proposed project, not the proposal format.
SBIR and STTR are all about bringing innovations and ideas to fruition and commercialization.
However, if you don’t pay
attention to the nit picks, your great stuff may never get serious
consideration. Give priority to these basics, and have either
someone in your firm (or an outsider) who is a good detail person go through your
proposal and the solicitation instructions
before you submit the proposal to make sure you’ve not missed any important nit
picks.
7) SBIR - SOLICITATIONS CURRENTLY OPEN
2007-2 DHHS PHS SBIR Omnibus Grants Solicitation Non-AIDS
Related Topics (NIH, CDC, FDA)
Due August 5, and December 5, 2007
AIDS Related Topics (NIH)
Due September 1, 2007 and January 2,
2008 http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbir.htm
Department
of Agriculture (USDA) - http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/sbir.cfm
Due Sept.
5, 2007
NASA - http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/sbirsttr2007/solicitation/index.html
Due Sept.
6, 2007
8)
STTR - SOLICITATIONS CURRENTLY OPEN
2007-2 DHHS PHS STTR Omnibus Grants Solicitation
Non-AIDS Related Topics (NIH, CDC, FDA)
Due August 5, and December 5, 2007
AIDS Related Topics (NIH)
Due September 1, 2007, and January 2, 2008
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbir.htm
NASA - http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/sbirsttr2007/solicitation/index.html
Due Sept. 6, 2007
DoD SBIR Solicitation 2007.3
Expected on the web July 19, 2007
www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/