Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Funding U.S. Manufacturing Innovation with SBIR

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a highly competitive program that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) with the potential for commercialization. Known as America’s Seed Fund, SBIR awards enable these companies to explore technology-based solutions and provides the incentive to profit from the commercialization of their research results. By including qualified small businesses in the nation's R&D arena, high-tech innovation is stimulated and the United States gains entrepreneurial spirit as it meets its specific research and development needs.

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Centers provide a variety of support throughout the lifecycle of an SBIR project. As an R&D project evolves, MEP services take on a different character tracking the maturity of the technology from proposal preparation through the conduct of the research to its commercialization. Through its deep experience and vast network of partners, MEP works as the trusted advisor to companies looking to innovate.  

Each year, eleven Federal agencies administer their own individual SBIR program within guidelines established by Congress. To find current opportunities, please visit www.sbir.gov.

About the author

Clara Asmail

Clara Asmail develops new approaches to support small R&D and manufacturing businesses with resources to commercialize technologies. Her 25+ year career at NIST includes managing the SBIR Program and Technology Transfer, and leader of optical scatterometry research projects. One of her inventions is the highest royalty bearing license at the NIST Labs.

Related posts

Comments

Add new comment

CAPTCHA
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Please be respectful when posting comments. We will post all comments without editing as long as they are appropriate for a public, family friendly website, are on topic and do not contain profanity, personal attacks, misleading or false information/accusations or promote specific commercial products, services or organizations. Comments that violate our comment policy or include links to non-government organizations/web pages will not be posted.