Reducing the amount of time between Phase I and Phase II from the present nine months expedites the amount of time the technology ultimately takes to develop. It is crucial at this time because it is very difficult for companies to stop conducting research and then pick it back up nine months later. It is important to decrease proposal review time because technologies, especially environmental technologies are very time sensitive.
In other words, as Foresight S&T claims, the technology becomes obsolete after 5 years.
Making the application process shorter would allow companies to retain development momentum more easily because people would retain working knowledge of the project.
This would benefit EPA as well as the companies, because then EPA would be getting more productivity out of their funding. Keeping the momentum of the project going is ideal for the effective development for commercializing environmental technologies.
As of today, once solicitations close, EPA SBIR programs proposal review process is nine months. Refer to the table below for the reasons that the process currently takes nine months. Refer to Table 5 - Timeline of Proposal Review Time for more information.
EPA’s SBIR program is unique because they have a two tier review process, the external third party (peer) review, and the internal relevancy review. The external review process requires that each member of a review panel be under contract to EPA before they can be paid. This process is the most lengthy, because initial draft contracts must be mailed out to each panel member for signatures. Then the draft contracts are sent through EPA’s contracting office, which requires approximately a month to process all of the contracts. Then each member is given a month to review the proposals for funding. If
the contracting process could be simplified, the time could be significantly reduced. The contracting process also comes into play after the external and internal reviews. Before each company can receive funding, they must be under contract with EPA. This means that after the review panels decide who will receive funding; it is still another few months before the company will receive any money.
The proposal review process is the same for both Phase I and Phase II. For Phase I, EPA ABIR program receives 300 proposals, so it can be understood why EPA would need nine months to sort and organize. It is not as important to reduce the time at the beginning of Phase I because the small businesses have not began research or
development yet, so it is not at critical to have expedite the process for the companies to receive funding. For Phase II, EPA SBIR program receives a lot less proposals. It is important to reduce the proposal review time for this phase because it is very difficult for small businesses to stop developing their technology, and then nine months later pick up where they left off. This becomes expensive and extends the amount of time it takes for development.
The following suggestions on how to reduce proposal review time can be applied to both Phase I and Phase II proposal review, except Suggestion 2. Please not that these suggestions are in chronological order of the application process.
Suggestion 1 - Close Solicitations Earlier
One of the biggest ways the SBIR programs can shorten their review time is by shortening deadlines. Solicitations are open for three months, and a majority of those proposals come in on the last day the solicitations are open. Shortening the time from three months to two month saves a month of time the technology has to get out into the
market. This does not reduce the nine month review process, but it does save a month of time from the entire one year process (Solicitation time, three months plus the proposal review time, nine months makes it a one year process). Once the solicitations close, the nine month review process time begins.
Suggestion 2 – “Guess” the incoming proposals for Phase II:
The EPA SBIR program requires their companies to submit monthly reports on their technology development progress. By carefully looking at the monthly reports, one of the SBIR program runners could take their best educated guess on what proposals from Phase I will come in for Phase II. Doing this will allow the Peer Review Division, to begin contacting the third party peer reviewers a month in advance; because it takes a few weeks for the experts to agree on reading their assigned proposal. Then the peer review experts get a month to read their proposals. Presuming which proposal will come in for Phase II has been done for the first time in 2006 by Don Tang and it saved them about two months of time. The WPI EPA team suggests that the SBIR program continues to do so.
Suggestion 3 – Company Signs their Contract
The companies that receive funding have a month to sign their contract and return it to the EPA in order for them to receive their first piece of the funding. Reducing that time to about two to three weeks saves additional time. Even though it only save about a week or so, every day, week, or month saved counts and begins to add up.
Suggestion 4 – Set up “Decision Meetings” in advance
By pre – planning important meetings just like a deadline or appointment would save another month of time. The “Decision Meetings” are meetings with the Director of
NCER and the Department Head of something? Meeting with those two people can be very difficult since they are directors of large departments. Right before the contracts go to the company their signature is needed by the both of them The “Decision Meetings” is a time where the people running the SBIR program have to explain why the proposal should be funded and to receive a signature on the contract so the small businesses can begin receive funding. Setting up the meetings with the respected people is what is time consuming, not the actual meeting. Right now, it takes about a month to set up those meetings. If those meetings are a pre set date, just like all the other deadlines for the proposal review process, it would save a month of time. The Director of Blah, Gary Foley is willing to set up those meetings well in advance to shorten this review process.
The total amount of time that would be saved off the entire one year application process would be reduced from 12 months to about eight months. The total amount of time saved off the entire nine month proposal review process would be reduced from nine months to about six months. These suggestions are the beginning to reducing the proposal review time for EPA SBIR program.