S190: Funding Your Start-up Company: The National Science Foundation’s Small Business Programs

The National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent agency of the Federal Government, invites eligible small businesses to participate in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding programs. Through these programs, the NSF provides grants to support engineering and science research that has the potential to lead to significant commercial and public benefit. The program is designed to support high-risk, high-payback technology innovation.  There must be a significant market opportunity, the technology must be transformational, and there must be a significant societal impact to warrant support from NSF.  The NSF is looking for discontinuous innovations; evolutionary optimization of existing products and processes or modifications to broaden the scope of an existing product, process or application typically will not be funded.  In general, NSF funding is targeted to technologies that are in the early stage of development where the research objectives in Phase I are feasibility and proof-of-concept followed by prototype development and testing in Phase II. The goal is to increase the incentive and opportunity for small firms to undertake cutting-edge scientific, engineering, or science and engineering education research that would have a high-potential economic payoff, if the research is successful.  The purpose of these programs is to stimulate technological innovation in the private sector, by strengthening the role of small businesses in meeting Federal research and development needs, increasing the commercial application of federally supported research results, and fostering and encouraging participation by socially and economically disadvantaged persons and women-owned small businesses in technological innovation.