What is the STTR Program?
It is another Federal program created by the 1992 Small Business Research & Development Enhancement Act. STTR began as a small pilot program to encourage collaborative research between small companies and universities or Federal laboratories. The program is separate from SBIR, but closely modeled after it with the same 3 phase approach. Legislation now requires that federal agencies with extramural R&D budgets exceeding $1 billion contribute a very small percentage to a STTR program. The program provided about $20 million in the first year, and in 1999 has provided about $100 million for small business research in collaboration with eligible non-profit research institutions.
STTR is a highly competitive three-phase program that reserves a specific percentage of Federal research and development funding for award to small businesses in partnership with nonprofit research institutions to move ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, to foster high-tech economic development and to address the technological needs of the Federal government.
