What might serve as grounds for the rejection for a proposal submitted in response to a regular subtopic?
“R” subtopics typically describe the end-point functionality required by the NIST research program, and as such give specifications that are needed to integrate the desired SBIR deliverable into the NIST Laboratory setting. The specifications can at times be very detailed, for example if a detector is being solicited, then the dark count, wavelength range, and sensitivity will be provided. It is understood that the solicited research will be a significant improvement on the current state-of-the-art available in the market. We expect it to be a challenge to build the specified deliverable. That’s the spirit of “Innovative Research.” Companies that submit proposals that offer only incremental changes to an existing fix or propose their own benchmarks of operability will not get funded. We are looking for innovative ideas with a reasonable chance of success. There is risk involved for both NIST and the proposing company: indeed the project may fail (the result does not meet spec.). Our re
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