国会将小型企业创新计划延长了三年。怎么办?

ByOctober 4, 2022

The collective sigh of relief you heard last week came from small businesses and university innovators across the country who had been holding their breath for passage of the2022年的SBIR和STTR扩展法账单,which was finally adopted by Congress on Thursday and signed into law by President Biden on Friday, ensures continuity for a 40-year-old R&D grant program that投资在4,000家小型企业中,每年约有40亿美元在各个科学,技术和医学领域进行创新研究。该计划在9月底一直面临终止,由于对非竞争力和外国影响的风险的担忧,其延期延长。上周的延期法案(国会都在截止日期截止日期之后),其中包括解决这些问题的关键规定,并将该计划重新授权三年,直到2025年9月30日。

What is SBIR / STTR?

小企业创新研究(SBIR)和Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs fund American small businesses engaging in dual-use research and development (R&D). Often referred to as “America’s Seed Fund,” their goals are to stimulate innovations that can address federal agencies’ missions and be commercialized in the private sector. They also seek to promote the participation of women and socially or economically disadvantaged persons in entrepreneurship. The program is a source of non-dilutive funding for small businesses, meaning they do not give up equity in exchange for SBIR funds.

SBIR的根源在1970年代时期的担忧是,美国在全球经济中失去了技术和科学优势 - 当今的关注点非常熟悉。该计划在国家科学基金会(NSF)驾驶,并于1982年正式成立,现在包括11个联邦机构。这些机构中最大的五个机构(国防部,能源部,卫生与公共服务部,NASA和NSF)还资助了STTR奖项,需要参与非营利性研究机构。

每个机构都决定哪些研究主题需要资助,并分为两个顺序的阶段颁发资金。例如,国防部calls对于满足战士任务需求的主题,美国国立卫生研究院(NIH)资金研究与新型癌症治疗,阿尔茨海默氏症和more。该计划的成功故事包括古通,赛门铁克,irobot和23andme等家喻户晓的名字。

更广泛地说,这两个计划的经济影响都是巨大的。一个经常引用的国防部研究声称这两个计划生成a 22-1 return on investment for the public between 1995 and 2018, with a total national economic impact of $347 billion and 1.5 million jobs created.

钥匙固定到扩展

In light of the looming authorization lapse, Congress discussed an extension of SBIR for months, butnegotiations founderedover a few key issues. One of these was disagreement over what to do about the minority of firms that receive an outsized share of awards, which some pejoratively refer to as “SBIR mills。” Most firms that participate in SBIR receive only one or two awards in their lifetime. But the award distribution has a major skew: for instance, arecent analysisfinds that just 10 firms, accounting for 0.7% of all SBIR recipient firms, have received 6.5% of all SBIR awards since 2000.

Some arguethat this skew is evidence of large, well-entrenched companies gaming a system intended to drive innovation from smaller businesses and new entrants. On the other hand, there is一些证据建议为这些企业提供价值m of scientific publications, inventions, follow-on funding, and commercialization, and may also serve as venues for talented scientists and engineers who go on to become founders.

另一个主要问题是外国影响力。之中国会对外国参与的关注在美国科学企业中,国防部经常引用的2021年报告allegedly found troubling indicationsof Chinese state involvement in SBIR funding recipients. These findings prompted cautious backlash on the part of lawmakers.

Summary of Major Bill Sections

国会一直保持直到最后几个小时2022年的SBIR和STTR扩展法was ultimately approved by overwhelming majorities. The core of the act is a three-year extension of the overall program and several SBIR pilot programs through September 2025. The reauthorization also includes several new provisions to address past criticism and points of concern. Let’s unpack these below.

新要求

Foreign Risk Management: The extension mandates each agency pursue diligence to assess the risk of foreign involvement with and ties to SBIR-funded small businesses. Business applicants will be required to disclose business relationships and financial arrangements before receiving an award, under threat of an agency funding clawback should a firm misrepresent itself. Relatedly, the bill requires multiple agencies to issue reports on foreign risks.

In practice, it is unclear how much of a burden the new financial reporting requirement will be for small businesses. Some startups, particularly first time awardees or those with foreign investors, could face challenges properly reporting this information. Others may be dissuaded from applying to SBIR solicitations entirely. It’s also unclear what mechanism would apply for managing foreign risk after a small business has received funding and completed the planned scope of work. To mitigate this, the SBA should be clear in its guidance to companies on what they need to disclose.

开放主题:The extension mandates that Defense Department components each issue at least one ‘open topic’ announcement per year. Open topics are technology-agnostic solicitations to which any small business may respond with their proposed innovation. The Air Force pioneered the open topic model at DoD in 2018, and according to a 2022GAO报告,事实证明,它成功地吸引了首次获奖者(43%的获奖者是净新手)和削减奖励的时间(平均更快的108-126天)。这项新要求还要求年度报告比较许多指标的公开主题奖。ReportsReports

提高了经验丰富的公司的最低绩效标准:扩展方概述了经验丰富的公司和第二阶段奖项的更高绩效标准。他们也被称为“多个获奖者。”这是为了减少SBIR的“磨坊”的努力,但是它是否能够实现这一目标是值得怀疑的。这些限制适用的公司数量很少,不符合该标准的最低罚款是仅限制在仅20阶段I奖项eachagency in the next year. The impact of these new restrictions is an open question that the next three years will hopefully answer. Finally, the new standards remove patents as a way to meet performance standards.

Here’s a breakdown of the new standards:

阶段 Criteria 标准
阶段I-II > than 20 Phase I awards 每4阶段I奖的1阶段奖项(existing standard)
第一阶段 - II > than 50 Phase I awards during the previous 5 years 每4阶段I奖的1阶段奖项
II-III期[层1] > 50 phase II awards during the previous 10 years 10年内,每阶段II级奖励的销售收入或投资250,000美元
阶段II -III [Tier 2] >过去10年中的100阶段奖 在10年内,每次II级奖励的销售收入或投资$ 450,000
试点计划

The reauthorization of pilot programs–and the inclusion of new efforts–provides the SBA and policymakers an opportunity to learn more from different agency efforts. They’ll get three more years worth of data to weigh whether or not to permanently weave these pilots into the fabric of the overall program. Brief overview of the pilots are included below:

  • 阶段Flexibility Pilot:NIH, DoD, and ED can issue direct to Phase II awards to fund projects that might be too advanced for a Phase I.
  • 平民机构商业化准备飞行员:Civilian agencies can use 10% of their SBIR funding for technical assistance not usually covered by Phase II awards. NIH uses it to give Phase II awardees resources for slow moving processes like Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, development of an intellectual property (IP) strategy, or planning for clinical trials.
  • 加速DOD SBIR/STTR奖的飞行员:DOD需要简化其奖励过程并在从头到尾的90天内发出奖励。
  • NIH Phase of Proof of Concept Partnership Pilot:NIH可以使用500万美元的STTR资金来进行概念证明。这个飞行员,也称为研究和评估商业化集线器(覆盖范围)计划, provides funds to research sites to address barriers to commercialization in biomedical basic science.
  • Assistance for Administrative, Oversight, and Contract Processing Costs Pilot:所有机构都可以将其3%的资金用于行政,向新参与者进行宣传以及提案撰写援助。
  • Commercialization Assistance Program: Agencies can use 5% of their SBIR funding to make additional awards, with matching funds, past Phase II.

Looking Forward

该法案是cheered onby the head of SBA, extends the SBIR/STTR program for three years instead of the usual five. That means the next debate over reauthorization and reform will approach quickly. In the intervening years, policymakers will get additional data and information on various aspects of the program through a series of mandated reports from GAO and agencies.

First, DoD, DOE, NSF, and HHS are required to produce a report on foreign influence and risks within 6 months. This will be the first comprehensive study of adversarial influence in the program across agencies.

其次,GAO需要进行年度研究,以比较未来四年的开放与常规主题。这些研究将比较几个指标的招标,包括过渡率,获奖者,技术类型等,并可能有助于阐明与政策相关的相似性和模型之间的差异。

Third, GAO is mandated to report on multiple award winners within 18 months of enactment. The report will examine commercialization rates, types of technology and their federal impact, potential lifetime award caps, and the effect of the enacted performance standards on firms.

幸运的是,这些集体报告将为下一轮改革提供宝贵的意见 - ReportsReports希望不必等到下一次。就我们而言,我们将期待通过这些规定的报告了解更多有关该计划的信息,并对改进领域进行自己的研究。ReportsReports我们正在寻找有关如何改善该计划的从业者,生态系统建设者以及小型企业的各种观点。该计划的各个元素进化的机会将有助于机构和企业家释放其全部潜力。