Small Business Innovation Research - Research Grants

Research Grants

The SBIR program agencies award monetary grants in phases I and II of a three-phase program:

  • Phase I, the startup phase, makes awards of "up to $150,000 for approximately 6 months support exploration of the technical merit or feasibility of an idea or technology."
  • Phase II awards grants of "up to $1 million, for as many as 2 years," in order to facilitate expansion of Phase I results. Research and development work is performed and the developer evaluates the potential for commercialization. Phase II grants are awarded exclusively to Phase I award winners.
  • Phase III is intended to be the time when innovation moves from the laboratory into the marketplace. No additional SBIR funds are awarded for Phase III. "The small business must find funding in the private sector or other non-SBIR federal agency funding."

In 2010, the SBIR program across 11 federal agencies provided over $2 Billion in grants and contracts to small U.S. businesses for research in innovation leading to commercialization. (Note that the $1B in awards stated above in the first paragraph is the amount that only the Department of Defense awarded to small businesses through their SBIR program. All of the other SBIR agencies make up the other $1B.) The company owns the intellectual property and all commercialization rights. Companies such as Symantec, Qualcomm, DaVinci and iRobot were started with R&D funding from this program.

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