Today the SBIR was reauthorized for a period of 6 years, ending September 30, 2017. This includes STTR, and what was the Commercialization Pilot Program (CPP), now to be known as the Commercialization Readiness Program (CRP). The reauthorization was included in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) HR.1540.
The bill has been sent to the President to sign the bill into law, and he has said he would.
The legislation gives the SBA 180 days to implement new policy directives for SBIR and STTR. As those are being developed, public comments will be solicited. AZBio will post the information on how you can comment if you wish one the web site is realeased. There will be a realtively short window as the new eligibility regulations must implemented within 120 days.
Rick Shindell of SBIR INsider has created a PDF of the SBIR legislation from the conference report that was passed. It is 107 pages from the 1844 page NDAA document. You’ll find it at www.zyn.com/sbir/insider/SBIR_Pages_from-HR1540conf.pdf
Key champions:
There are many people both within the House and Senate who worked tirelessly to make this happen as well as private citizens from around the country who made visits, wrote letters, made phone calls and more.
Some key champions on The Hill include:
- Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship
- Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
- Senator Carl Levin (D-MI)
- Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
- Congressman Buck McKeon (R-CA) chair of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC)
- Congressman and HASC ranking member Adam Smith (D-WA)
- Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-MA) who
This morning shortly before passage of the NDAA, Senator Levin stated:
“The conference report includes Senator Landieu’s bill to extend the small business [innovation] research, the SBIR program for an additional six years. It’s been about six years since we reauthorized this vitally important program which provides a huge benefit to our small businesses so that they can effectively participate in research programs that are funded by the federal government. In the defense arena, SBIR has successfully invested in innovate research and technologies that have contributed significantly to the expansion of the defense industrial base in the development of new military capabilities.“
Note: Many thanks to Rick Shindell of the SBIR Gateway/Zyn Systems for all of his great communications and updates throughout this improtant process. www.zyn.com/sbir