Commercialization activities in the SBIR program (part 1)

Telephone surveys were conducted over a three-year period on more than 800 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II projects initiated during the first three years of the program. For most of these projects, respondents were surveyed four years after receiving their Phase II award Five distinct levels of commercialization activity were identified ranging from “commercialization has occurred” (Level 1) to “commercialization is not expected” (Level 5). At the time of the survey, 12% of the projects had achieved commercialization (Level 1) and 18% were experiencing some commercialization success (Levels 1 and 2 combined). Of the participating federal agencies, the Department of Health and Human Services had by far the largest percentage of commercialized projects. For all agencies, over 60% of the respondents attributed nearly all of their projects' success to the SBIR program. Eighty-four percent stated that the technology development effort would not have been pursued without SBIR. Survey responses were also analyzed for a series of factors to determine their influence on the extent of commercialization activity. Factors included in the series are those related to the SBIR company conducting the project, the technology being developed, and marketing the product or service expected to be derived from the SBIR effort.