Executive Summary
NASA SBIR/STTR Subtopic Workshop
From September 12th to 13th of 2016, NASA held a Subtopic Workshop. This event was held to build NASA's relationship with the small business community and increase communication between NASA and potential proposers, and provide an opportunity for the small business community to explore and share ideas related to the general technical topic areas. Workshop content can be found at the following address: http://sbir.nasa.gov/events/2016-subtopic-workshop.
1.3 Three-Phase Program
NASA is offering a separate opportunity for SBIR/STTR Phase II awardees (from any Agency) to submit applications to NASA’s FY17 Civilian Commercialization Readiness Pilot Program (CCRPP) related to NASA interests. Preliminary information about the CCRPP will be released in late 2016. The official release, including information related to the proposal requirements and evaluation criteria, will be posted in early 2017.
1.8 I-Corps
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program is partnering with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to offer selected teams the opportunity for Phase I contractors to participate in the NSF Innovation Corps program (I-Corps TM) (hereinafter I-Corps). I-Corps educates teams on how to translate technologies from the lab into the marketplace.
4.3.2 Phase II Evaluation Criteria
For Phase II proposals, commercial merit is a critical factor. As such, for Phase II proposals the scoring breakdown and weights have slightly changed. Commercialization had previously been rated as adjectival but will now contribute into proposals overall score at a weight of 5%.
9. Research Topics for SBIR and STTR
The subtopics are being organized in a different way within Chapter 9 of the solicitation this year. Instead of being grouped by NASA Mission Directorate as in previous solicitations, subtopics are now being organized into groupings called “Focus Areas”. Focus areas are a way of grouping NASA interests and related technologies. This change is intended to make it easier for proposers to understand related needs across the agency and thus identify subtopics where their research and development capabilities may be a good match. If any proposer wishes to view subtopics as sorted by Mission Directorate, this listing will still be accessible on the website, but will not appear organized this way in Chapter 9 of the solicitation.
