|
Small Business Grants
SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research Program) is a government grant program that provides incentives to the entrepreneurial sector to develop and commercialize technology by reserving a specific percentage of federal R&D funds for small businesses. It serves as a protection for small business to compete with large corporations by funding the startup and development stages to promote innovation and stimulates the economy.
To qualify for the SBIR program, the company must be American owned and independently operated, be for-profit, have the principal researcher employed by the business and have less than 500 employees. Under the Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982, ten federal departments and agencies are required to reserve a portion of their R&D funds for awards to small business. They are:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Transportation
Environmental Protection Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation
The US SBA serves as the coordinating agency for the SBIR program. As noted on their web site, the SBIR Awards for 2004 showed California receiving the highest number of awards with 1328 and gross dollars of approximately $416 million, followed by Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, New York and
Texas. New Jersey was tenth with 164 awards totaling approximately $60.5 million.
For more information visit www.sba.gov/sbir
|
