Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2003 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

You probably already know that each agency participating in the SBIR and STTR programs publishes topics in its solicitation (basically a request for proposals, if that terminology is more familiar) that is available at the agency’s website. Most agencies have a single SBIR solicitation per year, and most of the STTR awarding agencies include their STTR topics and program details in their annual SBIR solicitation.

Some agencies release multiple solicitations per year. Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, and Department of Education are notable examples. In addition, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and its sibling organizations in the Department of Health and Human Services publish several solicitations each year. But what most folks don’t know is that NIH also has a number of SBIR and STTR opportunities that do not appear in these solicitations.

These opportunities are known as Program Announcements (PAs) and Requests for Application (RFAs). The basic difference between the two seems to be that RFAs have a single specific proposal due date, whereas the PAs are open for an extended period of time during which proposals can be submitted. What is common about the PAs and RFAs (and what separates them from the SBIR/STTR opportunities under the usual NIH solicitations) is that the PAs and RFAs often have much larger funding limits and may be for longer performance periods than the traditional $100k, six month Phase 1 and $750k, 24 month Phase 2 guidelines.

To check out the PAs and RFAs from NIH, you can go to the general website http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbir_announcements.htm to see the current list (fyi, there’s an underscore between "sbir" and "announcements"). Or you can go to www.SBIRworld.com or www.zyn.com and do a key word search to see if there are any specific PAs or RFAs that may be of interest.

Once you have found a PA or RFA of possible interest, read it carefully to make sure that there is a reasonable fit between your ideas and the Institute’s emphasis. Then we strongly recommend that you contact the Institute, using the name provided in the PA or RFA, to discuss your ideas and the Institute’s priorities, and to get a general feeling for whether that institute would encourage an application from you. You might want to ask about the level of funding for the PA or RFA to get some idea of the number of projects that might be awarded. If you are a seasoned NIH SBIR/STTR competitor, be alert for any nuance or emphasis in the PA or RFA that may require a different twist from your typical approach to an NIH proposal under a standard solicitation.

Any SBIR/STTR competitor interested in the life sciences should look into the NIH PAs and RFAs. And be sure to check back regularly because new ones are added periodically to the NIH SBIR/STTR program.