Three Phases of the SBIR Program
PHASE I: 6-month feasibility study
PHASE II: development of technology proven feasible in Phase I (1-2 years)
PHASE III: commercialization of the technology developed in Phase II (cannot be funded under the SBIR
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- Eleven innovative technologies funded by EPA’s SBIR Program have been success fully commercialized during this 6 year period (some of which are described in Appendix A). These technologies have yielded millions of dollars in revenue for small developers, with the added
benefits of creating jobs, stimulating economic growth, and enhancing U.S. competitiveness in the environmental technology industry.
- The innovative technologies and products developed under the SBIR Program are: (1) helping companies comply with increasingly stringent emissions standards, (2) allowing firms to avoid the use of toxic and hazardous materials in production processes, (3) enabling companies to
recover and recycle materials for reuse, and (4) providing companies the option of selecting environ mentally friendly products.
- EPA's SBIR awardees have received a number of prestigious awards in recognition of their innovation, accomplishments, and contribution to society. These awards include the R&D 100 Award, the Tibbitts Award, the Discovery Award, Popular Science’s Best of What’s New
Award, the Lead Tech Product of the Year Award, the Governor’s Award for Energy Efficiency, EPA’s Outstanding Small Business Enterprise Award, the Massachusetts Small Business Innovation Research Award, and the New Englander Award.
- EPA's SBIR Program is highly competitive; therefore, only 10 percent of the small companies submitting Phase I proposals to the Agency are awarded an SBIR contract. Over the past 6 years, an average of 87 percent of the small companies receiving a Phase I award from EPA
submitted a Phase II proposal. Of these companies submitting Phase II proposals, an average of 58 percent received Phase II awards (see Appendix B for information about the solicitation process and EPA’s SBIR awards).
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- Despite rigorous competition, hundreds of small companies from across the country have successfully won SBIR contracts. Companies in 32 different states have received SBIR awards from EPA within this 6 year period, with Colorado, Massachusetts, and California receiving the largest
number of Phase I and Phase II awards. (The geographic distribution by state of the SBIR contracts awarded from FY1990 to FY1995 is provided in Appendix C.)
- To assist small companies interested in submitting an SBIR proposal to EPA in the future, NCER is updating a booklet that describes the entire solicitation and proposal process. In addition, NCER is preparing a guide to help SBIR awardees identify sources of capital and
other commercialization assistance.
Relation of the SBIR Program to the ORD Strategic Plan
During the past 2 years, ORD has transformed itself to provide better science and engineering support specifically targeted to meet the needs of EPA decisionmakers. ORD has taken a number of steps to construct a new foundation for science and research in EPA that is based on: (1)
risk and ORD’s ability to improve risk assessments by reducing uncertainty, and (2) ORD’s ability to contribute to better and more cost-effective risk reduction.
As part of its new strategic directions, ORD has consolidated and realigned its research laboratories around the risk assessment paradigm. ORD has also made a major commitment
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