In a 2 June letter, Shyu warned they could place an “undue burden” on researchers doing unclassified research. At the September 2021 hearing, for example, Jere Glover of the Small Business Technology Council noted that some two dozen studies of SBIR by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have found high rates of commercializing important technologies.Īdvocates have also argued against the additional security requirements Paul is seeking. SBIR advocates say those objections don’t hold water.
At a September 2021 hearing, he argued that SBIR investments often fail to result in a marketable product and asked “whether taxpayers should continue to fund the folly without any expectation of a return on investment.” He also complained that some SBIR grants have ended up aiding China, noting a DOD report that flagged a handful of cases in which U.S.-based scientists funded by SBIR relocated to China. Last year, Paul signaled his opposition to another extension. The most recent extension, for 6 years, came in 2016 as part of legislation providing annual guidance to DOD.
The programs, coordinated by the Small Business Administration but managed by each agency, have been reauthorized several times by Congress but never made permanent. A companion program for academic spinoff companies, called the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, receives an additional 0.45% slice of the research budgets of the five largest agencies: DOD the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the National Institutes of Health (NIH) the Department of Energy NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The same day, Paul’s communications director, Kelsey Cooper, told ScienceInsider: “We have seen progress and are hopeful that we will reach a resolution.”Įleven federal agencies operate SBIR programs, funded through a mandated 3.2% allocation of their research budgets. “I will continue working in good faith with my colleagues to reach a bipartisan compromise that will reauthorize SBIR … before it expires while protecting our national security and bringing more of the programs’ technologies to market,” said Senator Ben Cardin (D–MD), who chairs the panel, in a 15 July statement to ScienceInsider. The appeals seem to have brought the two sides closer together in addressing Paul’s biggest concerns. “SBIR has become very important to university commercialization efforts, so it’s critical that Congress reauthorize it,” says one, Tobin Smith of the Association of American Universities. Higher education lobbyists are also pushing for an extension. In 2021, DOD granted almost 3500 SBIR awards totaling $1.7 billion. “The Department is concerned that any gaps or delays in reauthorization will cause irreparable harm to the small business community and have an adverse effect on national security,” Shyu explained. “The small businesses that participate are a vital part of the DoD R&D enterprise,” Heidi Shyu, DOD’s undersecretary for research, wrote on 12 July in the second of two recent letters to leaders of the small business committees in the Senate and U.S. But key lawmakers say they are closing in on a compromise that would extend the program beyond its current expiration date of 30 September, spurred by strong pleas from the Department of Defense (DOD), the largest provider of SBIR grants. Paul, who thinks SBIR grants are often wasteful and possibly even a threat to national security, derailed what was expected to be a routine renewal of the $4-billion-a-year program by proposing numerous changes that advocates say would hamstring, if not cripple it. This year is no exception, courtesy of Senator Rand Paul (KY), ranking Republican on the Senate’s small business committee. But it has had numerous near-death experiences since it was launched in 1982. government’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a major source of funding for academic and industry scientists seeking to commercialize discoveries.
0 kommentar(er)
