statisticsinfo

U.S. Department of Energy
Small Business Innovation Research Program and
Small Business Technology Transfer Program
Program Statistics

PHASE III IS ALIVE AND WELL IN THE DOE SBIR PROGRAM

The DOE collects information on Phase III funding from its Phase II awardees. Phase III funding includes: (1) sales, and (2) funds raised to pursue commercialization or further development for SBIR technology.

Awardees have achieved over $1 billion in Phase III funding, three times the DOE investment in these projects.
70 percent of Phase II projects have led to Phase III funding; two-thirds of these projects contributed to sales of new products or services.

OLD BOYS NETWORK? --- NO WAY!

The DOE is proud of the fact that many newcomers win SBIR awards.

In 2005, 45 companies won a Phase II award for the first time out of 93 companies altogether (48%)
In 2005, 41% of the Phase I awardees, won their DOE SBIR award for the first time. (This corresponds to 29% of the awards.)

ODDS OF WINNING AN AWARD VARY FROM ONE
PROGRAM AREA TO ANOTHER

In its SBIR/STTR solicitation, the DOE groups technical topics by its technical program areas and provides an overview of these program areas. The SBIR/STTR funding is collected from each of these technical programs and, in return, the programs are allocated a proportional share of SBIR/STTR awards.

In 2005, the chances of winning a Phase I award were different for different programs:

Program Area	# of Topics	Grant Applications Submitted	Phase I Awards
Fossil Energy	7	247	29
Advanced Scientific Computing Research	3	47	9
Basic Energy Sciences	9	247	56
Biological and Environmental Research	6	182	47
Environmental Management	0	0	0
Nuclear Physics	4	47	25
High Energy Physics	5	111	46
Fusion Energy Sciences	3	80	18
Nuclear Energy	1	11	3
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy	6	470	38
Nonproliferation and National Security	3	61	11
Electric Transmission and Distribution	2	48	8
TOTALS	49	1551	290

SCORING AND SELECTION PROCESS
DOE uses three evaluation criteria for SBIR grant applications: (1) Strength of the Scientific/ Technical Approach, (2) Ability to Carry Out the Project in a Cost Effective Manner, and (3) Impact. Each is defined in the solicitation and carries equal weight.

Grant applications are considered candidates for funding if, based on comments from expert technical reviewers, the cognizant DOE technical staff member: (1) has no reservations with respect to any of the criteria and (2) strongly endorses the grant application with respect to at least 2 of the 3 criteria.

The DOE technical program areas are each allocated a fixed number of awards, proportional to their SBIR contribution. (A grant application falls under the jurisdiction of a particular program area if the application was submitted to one of that program’s technical topics.) Each technical program conducts a process to determine which of their candidates for funding will be selected for award.

Results from 1997 - 2004:

	Grant Applications	Candidates for Funding	Percentage (%)	Awards	Percentage Funded(%)
Phase I
2004	1375	389*	28	300*	22
2003	1227	338*	28	236*	19
2002	971	301*	31	246*	25
2001	901	317*	36	234*	26
2000	1086	325*	30	221*	20
1999	1135	306	27	203	18
1998	1191	337	28	204	17
1997	1225	309	25	202	16

Phase II
2004	207*	138*	66	121*	58
2003	223*	129*	58	114*	51
2002	206*	129*	63	117*	57
2001	178	103	58	97	54
2000	184	101	55	91	49
1999	179	115	64	84	47
1998	173	112	65	84	49
1997	187	111	59	86	46

* Includes both SBIR and STTR.