workshop, as summarized here, described many important influences on the development and adoption process.

The National Cancer Institute has been actively developing programs to make the National Institutes of Health peer review system more accessible and friendly to technology development. According to Carol Dahl, “one problem that NCI has been struggling with is that the traditional NIH peer review system has not necessarily been friendly to non-hypothesis driven research.” The National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review and Office of External Research has taken a very proactive stance in tutoring the study sections that look at these applications. In addition, NCI established a new Office of Technology and Industrial Relations two years ago to facilitate expedited technology development and transfer activities.

Aiming to develop a more streamlined grant application and award process for technology discovery and development, the National Cancer Institute has held several meetings with the research community. These discussions have proved fruitful and have revealed that traditional grant awards for technology development do not mesh well with the uncertain timetable of technology discovery, development, and adoption.

In FY 2000, NCI invested $63.7 billion in Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) awards and another $3.8 million in Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) grants.