The SBIR and STTR Program’s economic impact is well documented at DOD, as the Air Force and the Navy Economic Impact Studies have demonstrated, as well as the completed but not yet published DOD-wide Economic Impact Study. All of these studies show 10% of SBIR companies in the program were acquired by larger firms, and about 10% licenses their technology.
The National Institute of Health has just released their own study looking into the impacts of the SBIR/STTR program for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) from 1998-2018. This study shows that out of the 407 SBIR firms responding 100 were acquired and another 100 licensed their products, even higher rates than at the Defense agencies. It also shows $9.1 billion in sales, 107,918 new jobs created, and a total economic output of $26.1 billion, from a total government investment of $787 million. Every dollar NCI spent on SBIR resulted in over $10 dollars in sales.
The new NCI study demonstrates that the SBIR program works just as well in civilian agencies as it does for defense agencies.
NCI SBIR/STTR Economic Impact Study 1998-2018