Defense Contractors SBIR/STTR Partnering Manual: A Primer on Technology Risk Management and Partnering Strategies
Abstract
As the world looks increasingly to technology innovation to meet the challenges of defense, security, disaster relief and increased health, many in industry have come to identify this nation's SBIR/STTR programs as a unique resource to be mined and supported. While this may not have been true during the SBIR/STTR adolescence of the 1990s, we in government realized by 1998 that small business/large business partnerships required nurturing for SBIR/STTR technologies to transition successfully into defense Programs of Record -- that is, to be "commercialized" -- and that such partnerships needed a strong "technology pull" from command customers and the acquisition community. This decade has witnessed a notable exploration of the small business innovation well, by both government and industry, as we have together experimented with SBIR/STTR access strategies and tactics. Congress, having seen the first fruits of our work in a modest but valuable array of products on the battlefield, in the operating room, and in other life-centric venues, has encouraged more and better from the SBIR/STTR resource, and should reauthorize SBIR/STTR in 2008. To more effectively mine the SBIR/STTR programs, we have learned, requires superior technology risk management, a flexible approach to incentivization, a keen understanding of SBIR/STTR legal and contractual imperatives, and a relentless determination to leverage other fiscal resources to mature technology solutions to platform, system and subsystem problems. This manual is a preliminary assistance effort, in that regard, written with industry business models very much in mind.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA488774
Entities
People
- John R. Williams
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research