A new paper on the role of multiple award winners at the DOD SBIR program was recently published by Incumetrics, a leading economic analysis company focusing on measuring and evaluating innovation. Often derided as “SBIR Mills”, multiple SBIR award-winning small businesses have come under attack in recent years from interests that question their commercialization rates and seek to exclude them from the SBIR and STTR programs. The bill introduced by Senator Ernst earlier this year introduces major changes designed to kick these companies out of the program, making it difficult for companies to grow within SBIR/STTR without major outside investment, such as VC funding.
This paper strongly rebuts the arguments put forth by Sen. Ernst and her allies that multiple award winners do not commercialize, and in fact do serve a unique and important role at the Department of Defense, providing capabilities and institutional knowledge that newer startups simply don’t have. In addition, multiple award winners do commercialize at a very high rate, not just through government Phase III, but through third party revenue, licensing, spinoffs, and acquisitions.
Dr. Robin Gaster is President of Incumetrics Inc., which provides innovation analytics and strategic advice to high level clients in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He is also Research Director for the Center for Clean Energy Innovation at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Previously, he was for almost a decade lead researcher for the National Academies reports on the SBIR program. He has a Ph.D from U.C. Berkeley, and degrees from the Oxford University and the University of Kent in the UK.