Newsletter
Volume 28 | 2005 | Number 2
An Opportunity for Science-Practice
Collaboration and Entrepreneurship*
By Norman B. Anderson, Ph.D., APA Chief
Executive Officer
Wouldn't it be great if there was lots of money available for
psychologists to take research findings from our journals, develop
innovative ways of translating those findings for public use, test
whether the translation was effective, and create a business for
commercializing the translation? Well, the federal government has
made such money available, and too few psychologists take advantage
of it. The programs are called the Small Business Innovation
Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)
programs. These programs were created because many federal agencies
are required to set aside a percentage of their budgets each year
to fund the translation of federally funded research into
commercial products. Some of the agencies that have these programs
include the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense,
Education, Energy, Agriculture, and Homeland Security, as well as
the National Science Foundation and NASA. The ultimate goal is to
help ensure the public receives a return on its (tax) investment in
federally funded research. But importantly, another goal is to
provide seed funding for innovative start-up companies and small
businesses, since the success of such companies serve to boost the
economy and create employment opportunities. And the amount of
money set aside for these programs is not trivial--in fiscal year
2005 the amount is over $600 million just at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and Food and Drug Administration alone. I can tell you
from my days at the NIH, getting funding from these programs is
competitive but much less so than the traditional research grants.
I am bullish about the SBIR/STTRs because I believe they help us
get our great findings in the hands of those who can use them on a
large scale, and also help bridge the gap between the scientific
and the practice/business sides of the discipline.
How Does It Work?
There are some slight differences in
requirements between the SBIR and STTR programs. With the SBIR, a
key requirement is that the principal investigator (PI) on the
grant must work in the small business concern the majority of
his/her time if the grant is awarded. This is because the focus is
on business development, but collaborators who work at universities
full-time can be funded as co-investigators. With the STTR, the PI
can work fulltime in research, but must collaborate with a small
business concern. There are three phases of funding under the
SBIR/STTR programs, and you have to progress through them in order.
With Phase I, up to $100,000 is available for up to 6 months (SBIR)
or one year (STTR) in order to establish the feasibility of the
proposed effort, collect some preliminary data, and assess the
quality of the small business concern. Phase II provides a
continuation and expansion of the work initiated in Phase I, with a
greater emphasis on commercialization potential and research
findings, with up to $750,000 available for two years. In Phase
III, the business concern is tasked with pursuing non-SBIR/STTR
funding for its commercialization objectives (although such funding
may come from government contracts).
Examples of Behaviorally Focused Grants
There is a great Web resource at NIH called
Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP)
for searches for topics and abstracts from previously funded
SBIR/STTR grants (www.crisp.cit.nih.gov). I did a recent search on
the terms "behavior" and "psychology" under the SBIR/STTR grants
for all PHS agencies for years 2003-2005, which produced over 350
relevant grants. Here are some of the topics that have received
funding: Web-Based Diabetes Prevention Program for the Worksite;
Promoting Social Competence in Family Child Care Setting; Social
Skills Training for Aggressive Adolescents; Tailored
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Chronic Pain; Individualized Expert
Systems for Weight Management; Preventing Alcohol Related
Convictions; Educating Parents: Behavioral Intervention in Autism;
An Expert System to Reduce Depression in Primary Care; Behavioral
Intervention to Prevent Falls in Older Adults; and Motivational
Interviewing for Smoking Cessation, to name a few. As you can see,
the topics are quite varied. The tools produced through the
SBIR/STTR program are designed to be sold to government agencies,
school systems, health practitioners, researchers, businesses and
the general public.
Here are two online resources that can get you started: http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbirsttr_programs.htm
and http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbir.htm.
I also strongly recommend contacting the SBIR/STTR office for
personal guidance. Good luck!
*Copyright © 2005 by the American
Psychological Association. Reproduced with permission. Anderson, N.
B. (2005, June). An opportunity for science-practice collaboration
and entrepreneurship. Monitor on Psychology,
36,9.