Through the SBIR Program, 11 federal agencies make high-risk capital available to fund R&D at the nation’s most innovative small companies. Each year, federal agencies with extramural research and development budgets that exceed $100 million are required to set aside a specific percentage of that budget to be competitively awarded to small U.S. firms under the SBIR program. The SBIR allocation is 2.6% in federal fiscal year (FY) 2012, increasing to 3.2% in FY2017.
Federal agencies with extramural R&D budgets over $1 billion are also required to participate in the STTR program by allocating an annual set-aside of 0.35% (FY2012). This percentage will increase to 0.4% in FY2017.
