2

Moving Forward: Finding Solutions

Obstacles facing underrepresented groups are broad-ranging. SBIR challenges include attracting and retaining female and minority students in science and engineering, removing barriers specific to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program’s award process, providing entrepreneurship training, and lowering obstacles in startups’ transition from research and development to commercial viability.

Personal stories shared by SBIR entrepreneurs illustrate the extent to which many among underrepresented groups lack the access, connections, experience, and nontechnical skills that propel others forward. Getting the encouragement, information, training, and financial support at the right time during their careers can spell the stark difference between success and failure.

Individual workshop participants made a number of suggestions for addressing the participation of women and minorities in the SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. These suggestions spanned a wide range but broadly fell within three categories—expanding the pool of applicants, eliminating barriers in award applications and selection, and providing greater education and support for entrepreneurship training and commercialization efforts. The suggestions made here are those of individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the views of the workshop participants as a whole, the committee, or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

EXPANDING THE POOL OF APPLICANTS: INCREASING THE PIPELINE AND IMPROVING OUTREACH

Expanding the pipeline of woman and minority applicants to the SBIR program is the foundation to improving SBIR diversity results. Suggestions included the following:

• Focus on the pipeline of talented women and minorities to upgrade diversity performance. “We need to increase the pipeline and stop leakage of the pipeline,” said the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Grace Wang. She indicated that NSF is working on increasing the number of applications to the program.¹
• Encourage more women and minorities to enter and stay in science and engineering. ML Mackey of Beacon Interactive Systems stressed the importance of showing that science and engineering is a creative field—that it can be used to solve real-life problems.² Jagannathan Sankar of North Carolina A&T University provides student researchers at this historically black university with opportunities at his NSF Engineering Research Center. To train them to become next-generation global innovation leaders, he provides exchange and travel programs for students to engage with researchers in Germany and Asia, while enabling them to work on cutting-edge research at home.³
• Provide students, teachers, community college and Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) faculty, veterans, and others, an opportunity to work with SBIR companies to learn about R&D work and to gain entrepreneurial skills.⁴ NSF awards Phase II SBIR companies extra funds if they hire such candidates. The programs include, among others, Research Assistantships for High School Students; Research Experience for Teachers, enabling teachers to take the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship back to the classroom; Research Experience for Undergraduates, the most popular program among Phase II awardees; and the Small Business Post-Doc Research Diversity Fellowship, enabling postdocs to work for Phase II companies for up to $75,000 each.

A theme that ran throughout the workshop was a need to conduct more effective outreach to potential applicants in order to encourage participation among underrepresented groups. Suggestions included the following:

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¹See presentation and remarks by Grace Wang, National Science Foundation, in Chapter 6 of this volume.

²See presentation by ML Mackey, Beacon Interactive Systems, in Chapter 7 of this volume.

³See presentation by Jagannathan Sankar, North Carolina A&T University, in Chapter 6 of this volume.

⁴See presentation by Grace Wang, National Science Foundation, in Chapter 6 of this volume.

• Improve outreach not by starting new initiatives from scratch, but by partnering with existing networks serving disadvantaged populations.⁵ Partner organizations could include the Society of Women Entrepreneurs, Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), MSIs, Small Business Development Centers, the National Business Incubators Association, and the Association of University Technology Managers.
• Maintain a central database of potential outreach partners in the Small Business Administration, including nonprofits and state and local development institutions.⁶
• Repeat the same outreach events multiple times to see how interest grows.⁷
• Use the 3 percent of SBIR budgets for program management to improve outreach and reduce barriers to completing applications.⁸
• Find more creative ways to reach out to potential applicants early in their academic or business careers. Some workshop speakers learned about the SBIR program by accident.⁹

ELIMINATING BARRIERS IN AWARD APPLICATIONS AND SELECTION

Even an abundant pipeline and successful outreach will not increase SBIR diversity if applications from woman and minority candidates are not deemed competitive enough to win either a Phase I award or to transition successfully from Phase I to Phase II. According to the workshop discussion, the SBIR program’s application process presents a significant hurdle; cracking the code on producing a winning application is not straightforward. Suggestions on this topic included the following:

• Institute a Phase Zero program at the federal level, like those in Florida, Vermont, and other states, awarding applicants funds to hire consultants to help prepare stronger proposals, including technology development and commercialization strategies.¹⁰

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⁵See presentation by Winslow Sargeant, Small Business Administration, in Chapter 3 of this volume and the presentation of Tanaga Boozer, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in Chapter 4 of this volume.

⁶See remarks of Ronald Cooper, Small Business Administration, in Chapter 8 of this volume.

⁷See remarks of Kevin Wheeler, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, in Chapter 7 of this volume.

⁸Ibid.

⁹See presentations by Karina Edmonds, Department of Energy, and Eric Adolphe, CenterScope Technologies, in Chapter 6 of this volume. See also the presentation of ML Mackey, Beacon Interactive Systems, in Chapter 7 of this volume.

¹⁰See presentation by Tanaga Boozer, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in Chapter 4 of this volume.

• Promote the use of mentors and role models who have won SBIR awards in the past to help SBIR applicants write successful proposals.¹¹
• Incorporate more women and minorities into the SBIR review panels, particularly representatives from smaller universities.¹²
• Conduct blind reviews of the technical merit sections of proposals.¹³
• Streamline the selection process.¹⁴

PROVIDING GREATER SUPPORT FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING AND COMMERCIALIZATION EFFORTS

Several speakers noted that program funding agencies can provide entrepreneurship training or can partner with other organizations that provide such training to prepare academically focused researchers for the demands of business. Several such programs exist today and were described at the workshop.

• The NSF’s programs awarding SBIR Phase II companies extra funds to hire students, faculty, and veterans provide them exposure to entrepreneurial culture.¹⁵
• AARP’s entrepreneurship workshops for workers ages 59 and over accomplish a similar objective.¹⁶
• Florida’s Empowering Women in Technology Startups (ewits®) program provides women with multi-week training in managing a startup.¹⁷ Each participant is paired with an experienced female mentor and works in virtual company management teams to develop a business plan and investor presentation.¹⁸

Additional suggestions included the following:

• Require a one-page commercialization plan for Phase I applications, except for those focused on basic research, to help to focus applicants

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¹¹See presentation by Eric Adolphe, CenterScope Technologies, in Chapter 6 of this volume. See also the remarks of Tanaga Boozer, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (Chapter 4); Grace Wang, National Science Foundation (Chapter 6); ML Mackey, Beacon Interactive Systems (Chapter 7); Jane Muir, University of Florida (Chapter 7); Christopher Rinaldi, Department of Defense (Chapter 8); and Joseph Hennessey, National Science Foundation (Chapter 8).

¹² See remarks of Timothy McClees, House Armed Services Committee, in Chapter 6 of this volume.

¹³See presentation by ML Mackey, Beacon Interactive Systems, in Chapter 7 of this volume.

¹⁴See presentation by Karina Edmonds, Department of Energy, in Chapter 6 of this volume.

¹⁵See presentation by Grace Wang, National Science Foundation, in Chapter 6 of this volume.

¹⁶See presentation by Jeff Makowka, American Association of Retired Persons, in Chapter 5 of this volume.

¹⁷See presentation by Jane Muir, University of Florida, in Chapter 7 of this volume and comments of Winslow Sargeant, Small Business Administration, in Chapter 3 of this volume, and of Joseph Hennessey, National Science Foundation, in Chapter 8 of this volume.

¹⁸See presentation by Jane Muir, University of Florida, in Chapter 7 of this volume.

• on the next steps in the continuum from research to development to commercialization for their projects.¹⁹

• Pair Phase II mentors with Phase I awardees.
• Adopt legislative incentives to encourage large companies to outsource to small companies and to protect the intellectual property of small companies, particularly in the Department of Defense procurement sphere.²⁰

In his remarks as moderator of the closing roundtable, NRC SBIR/STTR committee member Michael Borrus of X/Seed Capital Management suggested that different approaches be tested: “The only thing that works is comprehensive attention to the problem itself at all points and a commitment to do that,” adding that we must “remove roadblocks, align incentives, measure the results; rinse and repeat; and do it ‘til you get it right.”²¹

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¹⁹See presentation by Tanaga Boozer, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in Chapter 4 of this volume.

²⁰See presentation by Alison Brown, NAVSYS, in Chapter 7 of this volume.

²¹See remarks of Michael Borrus or X/Seed Capital Management in Chapter 8 of this volume.

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