5

STTR Collaborations with Research Institutions

Congress established the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program in 1992 to foster innovation by facilitating collaboration between small businesses and research institutions. By leveraging the agility of small enterprises and the capabilities of nonprofit research institutions such as universities and federal laboratories, the STTR program aims to achieve NASA’s missions through technological advances. Collaboration is a statutory requirement rather than a discretionary component.

This chapter explores the unique characteristics of NASA’s STTR program, examining its funding landscape and potential obstacles to forming collaborations, and concludes by synthesizing some findings and recommendations. It examines collaboration patterns across all 741 NASA Phase I and Phase II STTR awards made between fiscal years (FY) 2015 and 2024, using research institution information reported by the Small Business Administration (SBA) in its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/STTR Awards database accessible via SBIR.gov. The chapter also describes the structure of NASA STTR collaborations, highlighting the concentration of partnerships among a limited set of research institutions, differences in participation across firm types, and the structural factors that influence collaboration patterns.

Unlike the SBIR program, the STTR program requires small business awardees to formally partner with a nonprofit research institution; the funding agency reports that collaboration in SBA’s SBIR/STTR Awards database.¹ Research institution partners of STTR awardees must carry out a minimum of 30 percent and a maximum of 60 percent of the work (SBA, 2023, p. 33).² In forming such a collaboration, the small business and the research institution must establish

___________________

¹While there is no requirement under the SBIR program for a small business awardee to partner with a research institution, partnerships with research institutions are permitted as long as at least two-thirds of the Phase I work and at least one-half of the Phase II work is undertaken by the small business (SBA, 2023, p. 33). There is, however, no requirement for agencies to publicly document the research institution partners for SBIR-funded firms.

²SBA’s 2023 SBIR/STTR Policy Directive indicates that “an agency can measure this research or analytical effort using the total award dollars or labor hours, and must explain to the small business in the solicitation how it will be measured” (SBA, 2023, p. 34).

a cooperative research agreement in advance that includes details on the allocation of intellectual property rights; data sharing, data use, and data transfer agreements; the rights to carry out follow-on research and development; and commercialization rights.

The tables in this chapter represent all 741 Phase I and II STTR awards made by NASA over the study period (FY2015–2024). Almost all identify a research institution partner. The tables examine the composition of these partners by institution type, with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs) as subcategories of academic partners; differences in HBCU/MSI partnership rates between socially and economically disadvantaged (SED)–owned and non-SED-owned firms; the specific research institutions partnering with woman-owned and SED-owned awardees; and the top 20 most frequently appearing research institution partners overall. Partner-type classification uses pattern-matching on institution names from SBA’s SBIR/STTR Awards database, supplemented by a confirmed override list for institutions with nonstandard naming conventions. HBCU status is based on the federal designation list for specific institutions that were established before 1964 with a primary mission to educate Black Americans (DoEd, n.d.). MSI status covers broader, federally designated categories which include Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions, identified through a named institution list based on current enrollment thresholds (NASA, n.d.m). HBCUs are treated as a separate category per their distinct federal designation and are not included in the MSI figures. Ownership flags (SED-owned, woman-owned) are drawn directly from the SBA SBIR/STTR Awards database.

DISTRIBUTION OF RESEARCH INSTITUTION PARTNER TYPES

Across the 741 awards in the study period (FY2015–2024), the vast majority of STTR partners are academic institutions. The predominance of academic partners reflects the technical profile of NASA’s STTR topics, which frequently involve aerospace systems, propulsion technologies, advanced materials, robotics, autonomy, and computational engineering. These areas align closely with the research capacity of engineering-intensive universities and reflect the program intent to connect small businesses with university research capability. Nonprofit research institutions—including national laboratories such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—constitute a secondary category of partners.

Universities account for 696 awards (94.4 percent) (see Table 5-1). Other nonprofit research institutions account for 41 awards (5.6 percent). No research partner was listed for 4 awards. Among those partners from academia, the committee also looked at how many research institutions held HBCU or MSI designations. Almost one-quarter of awards involved collaborations with MSIs but only a small number indicated collaboration with an HBCU.

TABLE 5-1 NASA STTR Partnership Counts, by Partner Type (Fiscal Years 2015–2024): Phases I and II

NOTES: HBCU = historically Black college or university; MSI = minority-serving institution; STTR = Small Business Technology Transfer.

SOURCE: Committee generated based on the Small Business Administration’s SBIR/STTR Awards database (SBIR.gov).

Table 5-2 presents data on research partnership patterns for SED-owned and non-SED-owned firms. Among the 107 STTR awards made to SED-owned firms with identified research institution partners, 4.7 percent (5 awards) involved an HBCU partner. In contrast, among non-SED-owned firms, HBCU partnerships accounted for 0.8 percent (5 awards). While the absolute number of HBCU partnerships is small in both groups, the proportional difference is substantial.

Differences are more pronounced with respect to non-HBCU MSIs. SED-owned firms in the dataset partner with MSIs at a rate of 41.1 percent, compared with 21.3 percent for non-SED-owned firms. When HBCU and MSI partnership counts are combined, 45.8 percent of SED-owned firm awards involve such a partnership, compared with 21.4 percent for non-SED-owned firms.

The creation of a dedicated nonprofit organization to manage SBIR/STTR infrastructure at Alabama A&M University appears to be a notable model for connecting firms with an HBCU and for promoting university research that achieves NASA’s missions. This nonprofit entity provides essential intellectual property management, grant support services, and coordination between faculty and university administration, addressing the administrative barriers that often prevent underresourced institutions from participating in the STTR program. This infrastructure enabled Alabama A&M to be the research partner for five NASA STTR awards, three of which were granted to an SED-owned small business. This case provides an example of how the barriers to successful research collaborations in underresourced research institutions could be overcome successfully.

Taken together, these results indicate that SED-owned firms with NASA STTR Phase I and II awards are more likely than non-SED-owned firms to collaborate with MSIs, and neither group is frequently collaborating with an HBCU. This lack of partnering with HBCUs may indicate missed collaboration opportunities. A number of HBCUs, including North Carolina A&T State University, Florida A&M University, Howard University, and Morgan State University offer strong master’s and PhD engineering programs. Moreover, Howard and Morgan State are located in the Baltimore–Washington, DC area,

TABLE 5-2 Partnership Rates Between HBCUs/MSIs and SED-Owned vs. Non-SED-Owned Small Businesses in NASA’s STTR Program (Fiscal Years 2015–2024): Phases I and II

NOTES: HBCU = historically Black college or university; MSI = minority-serving institution; SED = socially and economically disadvantaged.

SOURCE: Committee generated based on the Small Business Administration’s SBIR/STTR Awards database (SBIR.gov).

which is also home to the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Department of Defense’s Naval Research Laboratory. Because HBCUs and MSIs serve a disproportionate number of low-income students and those who are the first in their families to attend college, facilitating collaborations between these universities and small businesses may help broaden the set of researchers working on space topics, while enhancing the capacities of these institutions and contributing to NASA’s missions.

The NASA STTR program functions as a highly specialized university–small business integration mechanism embedded within established aerospace research ecosystems. While this structure supports mission-aligned technical rigor, collaboration patterns remain concentrated and exhibit limited engagement with certain institution types.

Table 5-3 ranks the 20 research institution partners that appear most frequently across all 741 NASA STTR awards made between FY2015 and FY2024. The ranking illustrates a pronounced concentration of partnerships among a limited set of research-intensive universities with top aerospace engineering programs. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) appears most frequently, with 30 awards, followed by the University of Colorado (24), Purdue University (23), and Arizona State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (22 each). The remaining institutions in the top 20 include other large public and private R1 universities (i.e., universities with doctoral programs and very high levels of research activity) with established strengths in aerospace engineering, materials science, propulsion systems, robotics, and advanced computational modeling.

All institutions in the top 20 are classified as academic institutions. None holds an HBCU designation, but six—including Virginia Tech and Arizona State University—hold MSI status. The absence of HBCUs among the most frequent partners underscores the degree to which NASA STTR collaborations are concentrated within a small set of established engineering research universities.

The dominance of large public research universities reflects the technical orientation of NASA STTR solicitations. Many topic areas require specialized laboratory infrastructure; advanced testing capabilities; and faculty expertise in aerospace, propulsion, materials science, and computational systems—capabilities that are disproportionately located within major engineering schools. When STTR awardees partner with these institutions, it is typically with the aim of leveraging the cumulative research and development (R&D) investment and depth of technical expertise available to accelerate their commercialization activities. Historically, the involvement and support of the respective institutions’ technology transfer office in licensing complementary technologies often plays a key role in advancing commercialization efforts of STTR awardees (Olivari et al., 2021). These institutions also tend to participate extensively in federally funded research, suggesting that prior experience with federal R&D contracting and intellectual property management may facilitate repeated STTR engagement.

Mississippi State University’s appearance at rank 13, with 14 awards, is notable. Although smaller in overall research expenditure than many other institutions in the top 20, Mississippi State maintains a strong aerospace and engineering profile, including established relationships within NASA-related

TABLE 5-3 Top 20 Research Institution Partners for NASA STTR Phase I and II Awardees (Fiscal Years 2015–2024)

NOTES: “—” = no; HBCU = historically Black college or university; MSI = minority-serving institution.

SOURCE: Committee generated based on the Small Business Administration’s SBIR/STTR Awards database (SBIR.gov).

research networks (Mississippi Space Grant Consortium, n.d.; U.S. News, 2026).³ Its presence in the ranking illustrates that while overall concentration favors large R1 universities, institutional specialization in NASA-relevant fields can elevate participation irrespective of absolute institutional size.

Taken together, the ranking reveals a collaboration structure characterized by institutional centralization and repeated partnerships. Relatively few universities serve as recurrent nodes in the NASA STTR network, suggesting that collaboration patterns may be shaped not only by technical capability but also by established institutional relationships, geographic clustering within aerospace regions, and accumulated experience with STTR administrative requirements.

Table 5-4 presents all research institutions that partnered with woman-owned small businesses receiving NASA STTR Phase I and II awards between FY2015 and FY2024. During the study period, 63 STTR awards with identified research institution partners went to woman-owned firms, and these partnerships were distributed across 26 unique institutions.

Several patterns emerge. First, partnerships are concentrated among a small subset of universities. Virginia Tech accounts for 15 of these awards—nearly one-quarter of all partnerships with a woman-owned firm during the study period. The University of Tennessee follows as partners for 6 awards, while Arizona State University and Colorado State University each were partners for 4 awards. The remaining institutions appear with lower frequency, typically listed as the partner for between 1 and 3 awards each.

Second, all research partners in this group are classified as academic institutions. No other nonprofit research institutions or industry research entities appear in the partnership profile of woman-owned STTR awardees. This pattern mirrors the overall program distribution but suggests particularly strong reliance on university-based collaboration among woman-owned firms.

Third, like SED-owned firms, woman-owned small firms are more likely than the overall set of STTR-awarded firms to collaborate with MSIs: 44.4 percent of woman-owned small business awardees collaborate with MSIs. No HBCU partners are listed for woman-owned STTR awards during the study period.

The absence of HBCU participation in this subset contrasts with the modest HBCU engagement observed among SED-owned firms. Although the total number of awards involving woman-owned firms is relatively small (63 awards), the absence of HBCU partnerships suggests that the collaboration networks of woman-owned firms may be shaped differently than those of SED-owned firms.

Finally, the institutional profile of partners for woman-owned firms aligns closely with major engineering research universities. Many partners—such as MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, and the University of Michigan—are nationally recognized for

___________________

³See also Mississippi State University, n.d.

TABLE 5-4 Research Institution Partners for Woman-Owned NASA STTR Phase I and II Awardees (Fiscal Years 2015–2024)

NOTES: “—” = no; HBCU = historically Black college or university; MSI = minority-serving institution.

SOURCE: Committee generated based on the Small Business Administration’s SBIR/STTR Awards database (SBIR.gov).

aerospace, materials science, propulsion, robotics, or computational engineering programs. This alignment suggests that woman-owned firms participating in the NASA STTR program are embedded within technically rigorous research ecosystems, similar to the broader awardee population.

Considered altogether, the table suggests that woman-owned STTR awardees collaborate primarily with established research-intensive universities, with strong engagement with MSIs but no observed engagement with HBCUs during the study period. The concentration of partnerships among a few institutions—particularly Virginia Tech—also indicates the potential importance of recurring institutional relationships within the NASA STTR collaboration network.

SUMMARY

The NASA STTR program provides a mechanism for linking small businesses with research institutions to advance mission-relevant technologies. While this structure supports mission-aligned technical rigor, collaboration patterns remain concentrated and exhibit limited engagement with certain institution types, which tend to be the top aerospace engineering universities. STTR collaborations require formal intellectual property agreements that detail the allocation of intellectual property rights; data sharing, data use, and data transfer agreements; the rights to carry out follow-on R&D; and commercialization rights; thus, it is not surprising that the bulk of the research institution partners are large universities, which are likely to have already created templates for such agreements. Analysis of awards from FY2015 to FY2024 indicates that these collaborations are concentrated among a relatively small set of research-intensive universities, particularly those with established capabilities in aerospace and related engineering fields. New partner research institutions may find it costly to create and approve these agreements, and those costs may inhibit collaborations between small businesses and smaller universities that do not usually contract with the federal government.

NASA could facilitate new collaborations by providing support for the necessary contracting agreements between research partners and the small business awardees. For example, recent research indicates that NASA’s Technology Transfer Program, “which facilitates the licensing of NASA inventions to third parties,” stimulates the development of vital follow-on innovations across a range of technical domains (Giebel and Rösner, 2025, abstract). Because a large share of NASA STTR–funded firms collaborate with an MSI, there may be lessons to be learned from those collaborations that could help facilitate partnerships between innovative small businesses and research institutions that possess the necessary research expertise but have not previously engaged with NASA.

Participation varies across institution types. MSIs account for a substantial share of collaborations, particularly with SED- and woman-owned firms, whereas partnerships with HBCUs are infrequent. These patterns indicate

uneven participation across segments of the research ecosystem. The concentration of partnerships appears to be shaped not only by technical capacity but also by structural factors associated with participation in the STTR program. The requirement to establish cooperative research agreements, including provisions governing intellectual property, data rights, and commercialization, may advantage institutions with prior experience in federal research contracting and established administrative infrastructure. These conditions may create barriers to entry for institutions with less experience, reinforcing reliance on a limited set of partners.

Overall, the STTR program effectively connects small businesses with high-capability research institutions, but its collaboration network remains relatively centralized, which may limit broader institutional participation.

FINDINGS

Finding 5-1: NASA’s STTR research partnerships are concentrated among a relatively small subset of research-intensive universities with established capabilities in aerospace and related engineering fields. A limited number of institutions appear repeatedly across awards, indicating a centralized collaboration network. Information on SBIR collaborations would be necessary to obtain a fuller picture of collaborations with research institutions.

Finding 5-2: Minority-serving institutions participate in a substantial share of NASA STTR collaborations, although partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities are rare.

Finding 5-3: NASA STTR–awarded firms that are owned by socially or economically disadvantaged persons or women are more likely to partner with a minority-serving institution than are the overall set of NASA STTR awardees.

Finding 5-4: Administrative, legal, and contractual requirements associated with STTR cooperative research agreements likely influence collaboration patterns by favoring research institutions with prior experience in federal research contracting and established technology transfer infrastructure.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 5-1: NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Program Office should expand the availability of information on research partnerships for both SBIR and STTR awards by incorporating standardized partnership data into the Technology

Portfolio Management System database. Such information should include partner type, institutional characteristics, and indicators of repeat collaborations to support monitoring of participation patterns.

Recommendation 5-2: NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program Office should develop and disseminate standardized resources to reduce administrative and contractual barriers to the formation of STTR partnerships. These resources might include model cooperative research agreement templates and guidance on intellectual property and data sharing provisions to facilitate participation by institutions with limited prior experience.

Recommendation 5-3: NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program Office should take steps to broaden participation in STTR collaborations by facilitating connections between small businesses and underrepresented research institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities, through targeted outreach and partnership development efforts.