How big is the SBIR Program?
Present legislation requires every federal agency spending more than $100 million buying outside R&D to allocate a small percentage to SBIR. In 1999 approximately $1 billion was awarded to small businesses and about 1/3 of that to small businesses with 10 or fewer employees. The program will always vary in size dependent upon the amount of R&D work purchased by the government and has significantly increased over the last few years. Five of the ten SBIR agencies award about 90% of the awards. Nevertheless, a department like Agriculture still has more than $10 million available in SBIR awards.
