demic research. Small companies reportedly were also at a disadvantage when competing for funding at DoD and NASA because those agencies’ procurement process was oriented toward large, complex systems and the companies that could supply them. The NSF’s precursor SBIR program was established in part to respond to complaints by the small business community that it was being shut out of government funding for innovative research and for procurement and in part due to the conviction of key individuals within the NSF that small business represented an untapped resource.

As is often the case, the right people in the right place at the right time played a critical role in shaping the NSF’s response to the complaints by the small business community. These key individuals were Roland Tibbetts, who was instrumental in establishing the precursor SBIR program and rightly receives credit for developing the SBIR concept along with Ritchie Coryell. Interestingly both individuals had business training and shared the view that small companies could produce innovative, high quality research that could contribute to the nation’s science base. Furthermore, they believed that the small companies with the drive and know-how to commercialize were likely to be the same companies that could perform high quality research—a view that led the NSF program to have from the start a strong emphasis on commercialization That has continued and increased to the present time.¹

According to Mr. Coryell, the view driving NSF’s formulation of its small business initiative was that the agency already had a substantial emphasis on academic research in its grant programs. To provide a real counterpoint, the new program would target small companies and stress commercialization while also promoting innovation and high quality research.² These dual goals were considered completely compatible by the developers of the original SBIR program.³ The NSF SBIR program’s emphasis on commercialization, then and now, contrasts strongly with NSF’s otherwise strong orientation towards funding academic research as a means of contributing to the nation’s science and technical knowledge base.