Are you interested in obtaining SBIR/STTR funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF)?
by ScienceDocs NSF SBIR Grant Writer Dr. Bilello
Step 1 Are you Eligible?
The firm must comply with the SBIR/STTR Policy Directive(s) and the Code of Federal Regulations (13 CFR 121).
- Your Company must be a small business (fewer than 500 employees) located in the United States. Please note that the size limit of 500 employees includes affiliates.
- At least 50% of your Company’s equity must be owned by U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and all funded work needs to take place in the United States (including work done by consultants and contractors).
- The project’s Principal Investigator (technical project lead) must be legally employed at least 20 hours a week by the Company seeking funding throughout the duration of the project.
- The Principal Investigator needs to commit to at least one month (173 hours) of effort to the funded project, per six months of project duration
Step 2 Submit your Project Pitch. Get the form here: https://nsfgov.secure.force.com/sbir/
A “Project Pitch” is required: But rather than preparing a full proposal and waiting up to one month to obtain the required registrations, startups or entrepreneurs who submit a three-page Project Pitch will know within three weeks if they meet the program’s minimum requirements. They will also get additional guidance and feedback from the NSF staff.
You will have to provide specific company information
Choose a topic from a drop-down list, e.g., COVID-19
Briefly Describe the Technology Innovation? Up to 500 words describing the technical innovation that would be the focus of a Phase I project, including a brief discussion of the origins of the innovation as well as an explanation as to why it meets the program’s mandate to focus on supporting research and development (R&D) of unproven, high-impact innovations.
Briefly Describe the Technical Objectives and Challenges? Up to 500 words describing the R&D or technical work to be done in a Phase I project, including a discussion of how and why the proposed work will help prove that the product or service is technically feasible and or significantly reduce technical risk. Discuss how, ultimately, this work could contribute to making the new product, service, or process commercially viable and impactful. This section should also convey that the proposed work meets the definition of R&D, rather than straightforward engineering or incremental product development tasks.
Briefly Describe the Market Opportunity? Up to 250 words describing the customer profile and pain point(s) that will be the near-term commercial focus related to this technical project.
Briefly Describe the Company and Team? Up to 250 words describing the background and current status of the submitting small business, including team members related to the technical and/or commercial efforts discussed in this Project Pitch.
How did you hear about our program? Short answer ScienceDocs.com
There are only 17 questions to answer.
Step 3. Register your Company (if you have not before)
If your company has not worked with the government before, you’ll need to register with these systems. You MUST have completed your SAM registration BEFORE you can begin entering your Proposal in FastLane. Start as soon as possible!!
Step 4. Read the call for proposals (Solicitations)
The NSF only accepts proposals from companies that have been officially invited to submit (via the Project Pitch process). You can check out our current SBIR solicitation or STTR solicitation to get a sense of NSF’s objectives.
Step 5. Prepare your Proposal
Each proposal submitted to the NSF SBIR program must contain the following parts in the order presented:
Proposal Cover Page and Certification Page (Attachment B and Certification Page).
2. Project Summary (Attachment C).
3. Information about Principal Investigator/Project Directors (Attachment A)
4. Technical Proposal (12 parts), including graphics, and starting on page 3 with a table of contents.
5. Summary Proposal Budget (Attachment D) and Budget Explanation Page (also required for each subawardee).
6. Company Commercialization History (Section 3.5, Part 12 ).
Note: If ScienceDocs has not provided support for writing your Proposal, you may want to have a ScienceDocs professional do a high-level review of your proposal document
Step 6. Submit your Proposal
All NSF proposals need to be submitted on the FastLane website.
There are four submission windows for Phase I proposals in 2020:
December 18, 2019 – March 5, 2020
March 6, 2020 – June 4, 2020
June 5, 2020 – September 3, 2020
September 4, 2020 – December 3, 2020
Learn more about NSF SBIR Grant Writer Dr. Bilello
