The Journey to Impact: Funding to Consider: SBIR Grants
As part of our ongoing work to inform this community about potential pathways to commercialize ideas and inventions, today I’m writing about SBIR grants. SBIR stands for Small Business Innovation Research. This program is government-sponsored and supports the research and development of inventions and future products across the United States.
The reason to consider this funding is because it fosters collaboration between small businesses and nonprofit research institutions, and it pulls on valuable federal R&D support—tapping the resources of more than a dozen federal agencies, among them the departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, and the National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, as part of its role as the coordinating agency, the U.S. Small Business Administration must report program progress and resulting innovations to Congress each year.
In 2020, I was honored to lead a discussion with a group of panelists who are quite familiar with the SBIR program: Dan Lilly, SBIR and funding advisor to the Massachusetts business community; Dr. Susan Doctrow, a research and development consultant with vast experience securing and utilizing SBIR grants; Tom Bifano, BU professor and cofounder of Boston Micromachines Corporation; and Stacy Chin, CEO and cofounder of HydroGlyde Coatings. This group offered valuable information on benefits of the program from each of their perspectives, and practical advice on how to write a winning SBIR proposal to secure one of these competitive grants.
Excerpts of our conversation are included here. During the discussion, Dan Lilly also offered a helpful slide deck based on his work at the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, which we’ve included here.
The Process
Note that the process for submitting SBIR proposals is broken into three distinct phases, with opportunities for funding support at the first two phases. Phase I must illustrate technical merit, feasibility, and commercial potential; Phase II then allows for the continuation of research and R&D efforts that were introduced in the first phase. As for Phase III, there is no SBIR financing available but this is when a small business can pursue more extensive commercialization objectives resulting from the first two phases; this third phase could include non-SBIR R&D or production contracts for products, processes, or services intended for federal use.
Rana Gupta (RG): Dan, for researchers who do not have a business background, can you address how you’ve seen researchers address the business side of an SBIR proposal before and what types of assistance have they enlisted?
Dan Lilly (DL): It’s helpful for researchers to partner with a company in their target industry; those who are closer to the commercialization progress. For full-time faculty at BU, a suggestion is to enlist the help of a post-doc (postdoctoral researcher) who can help move the project forward. In this case, the faculty member is invested in the future company but the PI (principal investigator) leads the project in the role of president and key shareholder. In my experience, that PI is someone from the faculty’s lab.
RG: Dr. Doctrow, based on your extensive experience producing winning proposals, what should applicants know about the process?
Susan Doctrow (SD): It’s important to keep in mind that SBIR funding is not intended solely to advance research; instead, the goal is to advance the development of a product that ultimately can be sold. When writing a proposal, Phase I is designed to demonstrate
feasibility—and make sure that includes data that will convince reviewers that they should fund Phase II, as well.
DL: Also keep in mind that the proof of concept must show that your research or technology will accomplish the goal set forth in the proposal, and the definition of what this requires should be defined when talking with a program officer (PO). The PO can give more
insight into the proposal. Also, clear and quantitative milestones are a must.
RG: Now let’s move on to Stacy and Tom, each of whom have been recipients of this grant program. Stacy, tell us about your experience when you first embarked on the SBIR path, and what you had to learn in order to successfully secure SBIR funding for your product?
Stacy Chin (SC): Persistence! It took me quite a few times and many, many efforts to really understand what reviewers were looking for. Even though there is a systematic process, there is a lot of variability and can depend on the reviewer’s experience with the topic, whether or not they have a business background, and other reasons. You can write a strong proposal but the needs of the specific agency and the views of the reviewers have a lot of impact in terms of success. Keep trying!
RG: Let’s talk about the actual writing of the proposal. How difficult was it to get into the mindset of writing an SBIR grant? Did you collaborate with anyone to address the business- focused aspects of the proposal?
SC: I did not appreciate when I went into my PhD program how important it would be to write as a form of communication; such as scientific and grant writing. There is an art to the grant-writing process. I did write the proposal myself but PI Mark Grinstaff (professor
in the BU College of Engineering) had experience writing one and so gave me advice and helped with certain parts of the proposal.
RG: Tom, how about you? How did you get started with the SBIR program? Did you focus on commercialization rather than research in your proposal?
Tom Bifano (TB): Someone said, “I want to buy this thing you’re making!” When submitting for the grant, I didn’t think about commercialization. Instead, by framing it as someone else’s problem — someone who, by the way, has money to allocate to a viable
solution — then my main goal was to demonstrate that my technical program is one to be envious of; something that the reviewer should wish they had thought of. Keep in mind that the SBIR project outcome has to be useful to someone else, and so the outcomes — rather than the research, training, or learning process that one may outline in other research grant proposals — are what’s paramount here. Also, more often than not, the SBIR program produces narrowly focused interest areas, while federal granting agencies are more broadly interested.
RG: What is one piece of advice that you would give to a PI writing their first SBIR proposal?
TB: Don’t be hyperbolic. No one expects you to solve world hunger for $100K. Be realistic and specific about your goals and deliverables, and then meet those goals and deliverables, which is the only way to get a Phase II grant. The success rate for the Phase I is about 15- 20% of SBIRs and success of Phase II is more than 60%. Make your proposal stand out and demonstrate that you have the answer to and can solve someone else’s problem.
Does Bias Exist?
RG: I want to switch gears now and talk about bias and experienced bias. As this panel discussion is sponsored by Technology Development and the Diversity Committee, we want to acknowledge the low numbers of women entrepreneurs compared to their male counterparts, from basic research through the stage of commercialization of inventions. This is something that the Diversity Committee is working on with our ARROWS program: Advance, Recruit, Retain & Organize Women in STEM, out of the Office of the Provost, to organize efforts to advance women at all levels throughout the BU STEM community.
Dr. Doctrow, let’s start with you and your comments on any biases that you have witnessed in the SBIR process and if you have perspective or guidance for those who are interested in applying.
SD: Regarding bias, I am not denying that it exists; I am sure it does, as it does everywhere. But, anecdotally, I will say that my most successful consulting clients at getting SBIR grants in recent years have been women. As a reviewer, I don’t think reviewers consider the race of the investigators and, most often, we cannot tell anyway. I know people have the option to check off demographic data on the application but I tend not to look for it when I review. So, I have no real suggestion to offer on this topic. I would certainly like to know what others think, however, because my “data” are small sample/anecdotal.
TB: There is, as one might expect, some disparity in awards based on race and gender of the small business owner. But what is interesting and potentially impactful is that the demographics used by the SBA to assess participation by minorities and women appear to only track the small business owner. Ignored are the race and gender of the participants, PIs, or other investigators.
In a 2016 report published by the National Academies Press, entitled “SBIR/STTR and the DoE,” there is this passage that might be relevant to the subject at hand:
“DoE and other federal agencies use definitions provided by the SBA. However, for the purposes of this analysis—and for determining whether agencies are meeting the congressionally mandated objective—neither the SBA’s definition nor related metrics is adequate. In implementing the statute, the SBA has transformed “minority and disadvantaged persons” into “socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses
(SDBs), and [ . . . ] women-owned small businesses (WOSBs). Although this formulation has been traditional among SBIR stakeholders, it has several unintended consequences:
- It focuses attention entirely on company ownership, rather than the “participation” described in the statute. There are many different ways to participate in the SBIR program, and only one of them is ownership.
- It replaces “minority and disadvantaged persons” with “socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses,” which aligns the program not with the minority needs apparently at the forefront of Congressional objectives but instead with SBA definitions of socially and economically disadvantaged and with businesses rather than persons.
As a result, all participation other than via ownership is disregarded by agencies—including DoE. For example, no data appear to be maintained by any SBIR- awarding agency on female and minority principal investigators. Yet, serving as a principal investigator may provide entry for women and minorities into the SBIR/STTR programs. And as we shall see, SBA definitions of “socially and economically disadvantaged” have the effect of largely obscuring agency performance in addressing the congressional objective. To overcome these shortcomings, this study administers a survey which goes beyond company ownership and gathers data also on participation by female and minority principal investigators. Furthermore, it breaks down minority participation by racial and ethnic groups to provide detailed data on participation.
RG: Stacy, please tell us what you have witnessed or suggest?
SC: I would say youth bias and experience more than anything else. I was pleased with the diversity in review panels.
RG: Thank you, all, for speaking with us.
To learn more about SBIR, contact Rana Gupta, Director, Faculty Entrepreneurship, at rkgupta@bu.edu.
Rana K. Gupta formerly served as director of faculty entrepreneurship at Boston University. He helped BU researchers bring technology and other research breakthroughs to the marketplace to increase their impact through programs and workshops, one-on-one consulting with faculty, educational resources, and community building among BU innovators.