United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Report to Congressional Committees

SMALL BUSINESS 

INNOVATION 

RESEARCH 

Agencies Need to 

Strengthen Efforts to 

Improve the 

Completeness, 

Consistency, and 

Accuracy of Awards 

Data 

October 2006 

 

GAO-07-38 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

October 2006

SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION 

RESEARCH 

Agencies Need to Strengthen Efforts to 

Improve the Completeness, Consistency, 

and Accuracy of Awards Data 

Highlights of GAO-07-38, a report to 

congressional committees 

The Small Business Innovation 

Research (SBIR) program was 

created to increase the use of small 

businesses to meet federal research

needs and commercialize the 

results of this research. To 

monitor the program, the Small 

Business Administration (SBA) 

requires participating agencies to

provide, in a standard format, 

specific data on all SBIR awards 

they make. SBA then compiles 

these data into a database known 

as Tech-Net. Congress also

required SBA to create, by 2001, a 

restricted and more comprehensive

database that would provide 

information for government 

agencies to use in evaluating the 

program. GAO was asked to

identify the (1) types of data that

agencies report to SBA for 

inclusion in the Tech-Net database, 

(2) extent to which these data are 

provided in a standard format, (3)

extent to which SBA has 

established the government-use 

database, and (4) extent to which

SBIR agencies have developed and 

implemented techniques to track

commercialization of SBIR 

projects. GAO reviewed 8 of the 11

agencies participating in SBIR. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that SBA and 

SBIR participating agencies work 

together to improve the quality of

the data in SBA’s Tech-Net

database. SBA and the SBIR 

participating agencies included in 

this report generally agreed with 

our recommendation. 

Federal agencies participating in the SBIR program annually submit over 40 

data elements to SBA for each award they make. These data include 

information on the award, such as value and a descriptive abstract; 

information on the recipient, such as name and gender; and information 

about the firm receiving the award, such as number of employees and 

location. Participating agencies submit most of the information required by

SBA, but they are not consistently providing all required data elements, 

including the number of employees in the firm, and the gender and socioeconomic status of the award recipient, resulting in incomplete sections of 

the database. Agencies stated that this happens because they do not collect 

all of the information that SBA wants and because SBA’s requirements 

change regularly. 

Some participating agencies are not submitting SBIR award data in the 

standard format required by SBA, and although SBA’s quality assurance 

processes correct most of these problems, they do not correct all of them. In 

2004 and 2005, about 25 percent of the data provided by five participating 

agencies did not comply with SBA’s format. Formatting inconsistencies 

occur because the template SBA has provided agencies for reporting data 

can be edited. According to SBA, identifying and correcting inconsistently

formatted data involves considerable resources, therefore the agency has 

focused its quality assurance efforts only on key data elements needed to 

track awards; other fields, such as those containing demographic data, are 

generally not corrected. As a result, comprehensive program evaluations 

may be limited by the quality of the data in these fields. SBA officials expect 

this problem to be resolved by fiscal year 2007, when all data will be

submitted via an Internet interface that will not allow changes in the format. 

SBA is 5 years behind schedule in meeting the congressional mandate to 

implement a restricted government-use database for the SBIR program. SBA 

had planned to meet this requirement by expanding its Tech-Net database to 

include a restricted government-use section. SBA officials attributed the 

delay in meeting the 2001 deadline primarily to increased security 

requirements needed for the database, agency management changes, and 

budgetary constraints. SBA officials expect the government-use section of 

Tech-Net to be operational by October 1, 2006, when safeguards to protect 

the proprietary commercialization information in the database are in place. 

Most agencies GAO reviewed systematically gather data on the 

commercialization success of SBIR-funded projects. Five of these eight 

agencies regularly survey all awardees to gather information on program 

participation, including commercial success, and one agency is about to start 

a similar survey. In contrast, two agencies only gather anecdotal success 

stories from a small sample of SBIR awardees. SBA and agency officials 

generally agree that despite their best efforts, obtaining commercialization 

information from awardees remains a major challenge. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-38.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Anu K. Mittal at 

(202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4

Background 7

Agencies Provide Most of the Required SBIR-Award Data Elements 

to SBA, but Some Data Submitted are Incomplete 9 

Agencies Generally Comply with SBA’s Formatting Guidance, but 

Key Data on SBIR Award Recipients May Be Inconsistent or 

Inaccurate 10

SBA Is Five Years Behind Schedule in Meeting its Obligation to 

Implement a Government-Use SBIR Database 13 

Tracking Data on the Commercialization Success of SBIR Projects 

Varies Among Agencies and Remains a Challenge 15 

Conclusions 18

Recommendation for Executive Action 19 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 19 

Appendix I Objectives, Scope and Methods 21 

Appendix II Comments from the Small Business Administration 24 

GAO Comments 26 

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Defense 27 

Appendix IV Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration 29 

Appendix V Comments from the National Institutes of Health 30 

Appendix VI GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 31 

Page i GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Abbreviations 

USDA Department of Agriculture 

DOD Department of Defense 

DOE Department of Energy 

EPA Environmental Protection Agency 

FDA Food and Drug Administration 

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology 

NIH National Institutes of Health 

NSF National Science Foundation 

R&D research and development 

SBA Small Business Administration 

SBIR Small Business Innovation Research

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further 

permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or 

other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to 

reproduce this material separately. 

Page ii GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

October 19, 2006 

The Honorable Sherwood Boehlert 

Chairman 

The Honorable Bart Gordon 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Science 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers 

Chairman 

The Honorable David Wu 

Ranking Minority Member 

Subcommittee on Environment, Technology 

 and Standards 

Committee on Science 

House of Representatives 

Recognizing the potential of small businesses to be a source of significant 

innovation, the Congress established the Small Business Innovation 

Research (SBIR) program in 1982. From fiscal year 1983 through fiscal 

year 2004, federal agencies that participated in the SBIR program awarded 

over $17 billion in grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to over 

82,000 projects. The primary goals of the SBIR program are to stimulate 

technological innovation, meet federal research and development (R&D) 

needs, foster participation by minority and disadvantaged persons in 

technological innovation, and increase the commercial success 

(commercialization) of innovation that is derived from federally funded 

R&D.1

 Because the Congress did not define what constitutes commercial 

success of federally funded R&D or how best to measure it, agencies have

used different commercialization outcomes for the SBIR program, such as 

the sale of the resulting SBIR-funded product or process, the extent to 

which SBIR firms have received non-SBIR funding, or the creation of new

jobs or products. The SBIR program is currently scheduled to expire on 

September 30, 2008. 

 1

Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982, Pub. L. No. 97-219 (1982). 

Page 1 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Every federal agency with an R&D budget of $100 million or more is 

required to establish and operate an SBIR program funded by 2.5 percent 

of the agency’s budget for research conducted by others, called extramural 

research. Currently, 11 federal agencies participate in the SBIR program.2

Each agency manages its own program, including targeting research areas, 

reviewing proposed projects, and making research awards through grants,

contracts, or cooperative agreements. The Small Business Administration 

(SBA) plays a central administrative role by, for example, issuing policy 

directives to the participating federal agencies, collecting data from 

participating agencies on awards and recipients, and reporting program 

results annually to the Congress. 

Over the last 24 years, the SBIR program has been reauthorized and 

modified by the Congress at various times. For example, the Small 

Business Research and Development Enhancement Act of 1992 directed 

SBA and participating agencies to, among other things, emphasize the goal 

of increasing commercialization of research results and to improve the 

government’s dissemination of program-related data.3

 As a result, agencies

were required to include commercialization potential as a criterion for 

selecting award recipients. During this same period, SBA began to develop

a publicly available database, known as Tech-Net, that contained 

information on all awards made through the SBIR program.4

 The Tech-Net 

database is intended to be, among other things, an electronic gateway of 

technology information and resources for researchers, scientists, and 

government officials about federally-funded leading edge technology 

research. The Small Business Innovation Research Program 

Reauthorization Act of 2000 formalized this database by requiring SBA to 

develop, maintain, and make available to the public a searchable, up-todate, electronic database that contained SBIR award information.5

 The 

 2

The eleven SBIR participating agencies are the departments of Agriculture (USDA), 

Commerce, Defense (DOD), Education, Energy (DOE), Health and Human Services, 

Homeland Security, and Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); and the National Science 

Foundation (NSF). 

3

Pub. L. No. 102-564 (1992). 

4

The Tech-Net database also contains award information on SBA’s Small Business 

Technology Transfer (STTR) program. However, the focus of this report is on the SBIR 

program and not the STTR program. As such, any discussion of the Tech-Net database only 

refers to the information in the database related to the SBIR awards. 

5

Pub. L. No. 106-554 (2000). 

Page 2 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
2000 reauthorization act also required SBA to develop and maintain 

another restricted government database that would contain additional 

information on commercialization not contained in the public Tech-Net 

database, thereby allowing better evaluations of the SBIR program on an

ongoing basis. This database was to be established by mid-2001 and made 

available only to government agencies and certain other authorized users. 

As the program has evolved over time, congressional direction has 

focused, among other things, on the ability of SBIR award recipients to 

commercialize the results of their research, as evidenced by the increased

emphasis on commercialization in the 1992 and 2000 reauthorizations of 

the program. At various points in the life of the program, we have reported 

that the SBIR program has been successful in increasing 

commercialization of research results and that agencies have used various 

methods to measure the commercial success of the projects they fund.6

Largely these methods have consisted of surveys of award recipients to 

obtain data on indicators of commercial success and soliciting “success 

stories” voluntarily provided by SBIR award recipients. However, we also 

reported that these methods provided only “snapshots” of commercial 

success and did not allow for a systematic demonstration of changes in

program commercialization rates over time. We reported that the lack of 

clarity on how much emphasis agencies should place on

commercialization versus other SBIR program goals had also created 

challenges for assessing the program’s results. 

In the context of efforts to monitor and evaluate the success of the SBIR 

program, you requested that we identify the (1) types of data that 

participating SBIR agencies are reporting to SBA for inclusion in the TechNet database; (2) extent to which agencies provide data for the Tech-Net 

database in a standard format to enable program evaluation; (3) extent to 

which SBA has met the mandate to establish, by mid-2001, a governmentuse database that can be used for program evaluation; and (4) extent to 

which participating SBIR agencies have developed and implemented 

techniques to track the commercialization success of SBIR projects. 

 6

See GAO, Federal Research: Observations on the Small Business Innovation Research

Program, GAO-05-861T, June 28, 2005; Federal Research: Observations on the Small 

Business Innovation Program, GAO/T-RCED-98-218, June 4, 1998; Federal Research: 

Small Business Innovation Research Shows Success but Can be Strengthened, 

GAO/RCED-92-37, Mar. 30, 1992; and Federal Research: Assessment of Small Business 

Innovation Research Programs, GAO/RCED-89-39, Jan. 23, 1989. 

Page 3 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
In conducting this study, we reviewed the SBIR-related activities at 8 of 

the 11 SBIR participating agencies, which account for over 98 percent of 

the total dollars awarded by the program in fiscal year 2005.

7

 To determine 

the types of data these participating agencies are reporting to SBA and the 

extent to which SBA has complied with the requirement to establish a 

government-use database that can be used for program evaluation 

purposes, we compared the provisions in the Small Business Innovation 

Research Program Reauthorization Act of 2000, SBA’s amended Policy

Directive implementing the Act issued in September 2002, and other 

guidance with agency SBIR Tech-Net database reports. To determine the 

extent to which data for the Tech-Net database are provided in a standard

format to enable program evaluation, we compared the data from 

participating agencies with data in SBA’s Tech-Net database for fiscal 

years 2004 and 2005, the 2 most recent years for which data were 

available. Our data reliability review focused on SBA’s data system and 

internal controls, rather than on the systems and internal controls 

agencies use to create the data provided to SBA. To assess the reliability of 

the data in SBA’s Tech-Net database, we interviewed SBA officials about 

the database and reviewed related documentation. We determined that the

data are sufficiently reliable for our purpose, which is to report on SBA’s 

efforts to ensure consistency and completeness of the data it receives. We

used GAO’s data reliability guidance to identify key attributes of data 

quality that can facilitate program evaluation. We also interviewed SBA 

and agency officials to determine the extent to which the government-use 

database requirements have been implemented. To determine the extent to 

which participating agencies and SBA have developed and implemented 

techniques to evaluate commercialization success of SBIR projects, we 

reviewed agency documentation and interviewed SBA and agency 

officials. Appendix I contains a detailed discussion of the scope and 

methodology of our review. We conducted our review from April 2006 

through September 2006 in accordance with generally accepted 

government auditing standards. 

Federal agencies participating in the SBIR program annually submit to 

SBA a wide range of descriptive information about each award they make. 

Each year SBA requires participating agencies to provide over 40 data

Results in Brief 

 7

The SBIR participating agencies included in this review are DOD, DOE, EPA, NASA, 

National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the Department of Health and Human Services, 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) within the Department of 

Commerce, NSF, and USDA. 

Page 4 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
elements for each SBIR award made. These data include information 

about the award itself, such as the award amount, a descriptive abstract of 

the project, and a unique tracking number; information about the award 

recipient such as the name, gender, and socio-economic status; and 

information about the type of firm that received the award, such as 

number of employees and geographic location. However, we determined 

that although participating agencies are providing most of the information 

requested by SBA, they are not consistently providing the full range of 

required information. For example, two of the eight agencies we reviewed 

had not consistently provided SBA data on the gender and socio-economic 

status of SBIR award recipients, and five did not provide data on the 

number of employees working at the firms that received SBIR awards. As 

a result, certain sections of the database needed for comprehensive 

program evaluation are incomplete. Agencies cited a variety of reasons for 

not providing the data requested by SBA, including frequent changes in 

SBA’s data requirements and differences in the types of data agencies 

collect versus the types of data that SBA wants to collect. 

Some participating agencies are not submitting SBIR award data in the 

standard format required by SBA, and while some of these problems are 

corrected by SBA’s quality assurance processes, others are not. Since 

2000, SBA officials have worked with participating agencies to ensure 

greater consistency in how the data required for the Tech-Net database are

formatted and have developed a reporting template that includes the 

required data fields and instructions for appropriate data entry. However, 

almost a quarter of the data provided by five participating agencies in 2004

and 2005 still did not comply with SBA’s formatting guidance. As a result, 

SBA officials said that they have to spend a considerable amount of time 

and resources correcting these data, and are unable to correct all of them.

SBA’s current quality assurance efforts therefore focus on obtaining 

complete and accurate data only for those fields essential to tracking 

specific awards, such as the tracking numbers and award amounts, and 

not correcting data in fields that contain demographic information about 

award recipients. The primary reason for the inconsistently formatted data 

is that the template SBA has provided for reporting data can be edited, and 

some agencies have done so and introduced different formats. According 

to SBA, by fiscal year 2007, this issue should be resolved because agencies 

will have to submit their data through an Internet interface that will no 

longer allow the agencies to change the format of titles and data. In light of 

the problems we identified with the Tech-Net database and the 

implications for these errors to limit evaluations of the SBIR program, we 

are recommending that SBA work with participating agencies to 

strengthen efforts to improve the quality of the data. 

Page 5 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
SBA has not met the congressional mandate to develop and implement, by 

June 2001, a government-use database that can be used for evaluating the 

SBIR program. To meet the congressional requirement to develop and 

implement a government-use database, SBA planned to expand the 

existing Tech-Net database and include a restricted government-use 

section that would be accessible only to government agencies and other

authorized users. This government-use section of the Tech-Net database 

would rely on information already gathered for the Tech-Net database and 

supplemented by information on the commercialization outcomes for 

SBIR awards. However, SBA officials told us that they have been unable to 

meet the requirement to implement a government-use database by 2001

because of management changes that have occurred at the agency and 

because of budgetary constraints. To date, with the help of two 

contractors, SBA has developed the framework for (1) importing data into 

the government-use section of the database, and (2) an Internet-based 

interface that would allow agencies and award recipients to access and 

enter commercialization information. According to SBA, the governmentuse section of the database will not be fully operational until the agency 

resolves certain outstanding issues, such as making the commercialization 

information secure because this information is considered proprietary and 

confidential. SBA officials expect that the government-use section of the 

database will be operational by October 1, 2006; however, they also 

recognize that additional enhancements to improve the efficiency of the 

database may still be needed after the system is operational. 

Seven of the eight agencies participating in the SBIR program that we 

reviewed are gathering data on the commercialization success of SBIRfunded projects; however, the methodological rigor of their methods 

varies significantly. Under the program’s authorizing legislation and 

implementation guidance, agencies have been given considerable 

flexibility in tracking the commercial success of their SBIR-funded 

projects. Specifically, five of the eight agencies systematically and 

periodically survey SBIR award recipients to gather a range of information 

on program participation, including commercialization experience. For 

example, DOD annually surveys SBIR award recipients to gather data on 

(1) sales of SBIR-funded research results, (2) commitments SBIR 

recipients have received for additional development funding, and (3) 

whether SBIR-funded research results have been used by other federal 

programs. Two of the eight agencies we reviewed use less systematic data 

gathering efforts and instead focus on gathering success stories and 

conducting periodic follow-up with a small sample of SBIR award 

recipients. For example, USDA periodically contacts a small group of 

award recipients to update and obtain information on their 

Page 6 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
commercialization experiences. The remaining agency—NIST—has 

developed a survey that it plans to send to all of its SBIR award recipients 

in 2006. Regardless of the methods used to gather commercialization 

information, SBA and agency officials believe that several factors 

complicate their efforts to obtain this information in a standardized and 

complete manner. For example, these officials told us that many years 

may elapse from the time an SBIR award is granted to the time a product 

or process achieves commercial success and maintaining contact with 

award recipients during this time period is often difficult. Moreover, 

during this time, firms may change their names, be purchased by other 

firms, or start new businesses to pursue the project’s commercial 

potential, making it even more difficult for the agencies to track these 

firms and link them to their original SBIR awards. 

The Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982 established the 

SBIR program and identified four program goals: technological innovation,

commercialization of the research results, the use of small businesses to 

meet agencies’ R&D needs, and participation in federal R&D by minorities 

and disadvantaged persons. The legislation provided for a competitive 

three-phased program: phase I to determine the technical and scientific 

merit and feasibility of a proposed research idea; phase II to further 

develop the idea, taking into account its commercial potential; and phase 

III to commercialize the resulting product or process with private or 

federal investment but no additional SBIR funding. 

Background 

Under the SBIR program provisions, federal agencies that have external

R&D budgets of $100 million or more are required to use 2.5 percent of 

these budgets to establish and operate an SBIR program. SBA oversees 

and coordinates the efforts of the eleven agencies currently participating 

in the program. In this capacity, SBA coordinates the participating 

agencies’ schedules to announce opportunities for firms to apply for 

awards, called a solicitation, and provides access to these solicitations 

through its Web site. As part of its oversight effort, SBA collects SBIR data 

from the participating agencies, aggregates the data, and uses the data to, 

among other things, monitor the program and report annually to the 

Congress. 

In reauthorizing the SBIR program in 1992, the Congress stated its 

intention to expand and improve the program by emphasizing its goal of 

increasing private sector commercialization, increasing participation in 

federal R&D by small businesses, and improving the government’s 

dissemination of program-related information. One of the new provisions 

Page 7 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
under the 1992 legislation requires agencies, when evaluating phase II 

proposals, to consider their commercial potential, including the recipients’ 

experiences commercializing the results from previous SBIR awards, 

commitments accompanying the proposals for developmental funding 

from sources other than the SBIR program, and other factors. 

The SBIR program was again reauthorized in 2000 by the Small Business 

Innovation Research Program Reauthorization Act of 2000. The 2000 

legislation directed SBA and participating agencies to, among other things, 

expand the scope of publicly available information on specific awards and 

to annually report data on their SBIR programs to SBA. The act required 

that SBIR phase II award recipients be requested to voluntarily provide 

information to the agencies describing the outputs and outcomes of their 

SBIR award. The act also required SBA to establish, by mid-2001, a

searchable and up-to-date electronic database available for public use, and 

a restricted government-use database. To accomplish this mandate, SBA 

envisioned expanding the electronic database, known as Tech-Net, that it 

had developed in the late 1990s, into two sections: a public-use section and 

a restricted government-use section. The public-use section of the TechNet database would provide access to nearly all of the statutorily-required 

award information for SBIR awards gathered by the agencies. The publicuse section was intended to be an electronic gateway of technology 

information and resources for researchers, scientists, and government 

officials who are seeking information on potential small business partners, 

contractors, or leading edge technology research. The government-use 

section would be solely used for program evaluation purposes accessible 

only to government agencies and other authorized users, and would 

contain commercialization data voluntarily supplied by SBIR recipients 

upon completion of their phase II SBIR funding agreement, such as 

revenue from the sale of new products or services resulting from the 

research undertaken with the award. In addition, applicants for phase II 

awards would be required to update information on the commercialization 

success of any prior SBIR awards they had received. Currently, SBA has 

created and is maintaining the public-use section of the Tech-Net 

database, which is available on the Internet to the general public. 

Page 8 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
While federal agencies participating in the SBIR program submit a wide 

range of descriptive award information to SBA annually, these agencies 

are not consistently providing all of the required information. As outlined 

in SBA’s guidance, each year SBIR participating agencies are required to 

collect and maintain information from recipients and provide it to SBA so 

that it can be included in the Tech-Net database. Specifically, participating 

agencies are required to provide over 40 data elements for each SBIR 

award they make. These data include award-specific information, such as

the date and amount of the award, an abstract of the project funded by the 

award, and a unique tracking number for each award. Participating 

agencies are also required to provide data about the award recipient, such

as gender and socio-economic status, and information about the type of 

firms that received the awards, such as number of employees and 

geographic location. Much of the data collected by participating agencies 

are provided by the SBIR applicants at the time they apply for an award. 

Agencies provide additional information, such as the grant/contract 

number and the dollar amount of the award, after the award is made. 

Agencies Provide 

Most of the Required 

SBIR-Award Data 

Elements to SBA, but 

Some Data Submitted 

are Incomplete 

For the most part, all of the eight agencies we reviewed provided the 

majority of the SBIR award data requested by SBA, including the program 

identification number; company name, address, and contact information; 

award year and amount; a unique tracking number that will stay with the 

award through both phase I and phase II; and the title and abstract of the 

project funded. However, we also determined that some of the agencies 

are not providing the full range of information required by SBA. For 

example, two of the eight agencies we reviewed had not provided SBA 

data on the gender or socio-economic status of SBIR award recipients in 

2004 and 2005. Similarly, in 2005, five of the eight agencies failed to 

provide data on the number of employees working at the firms that 

received the awards. As a result, SBA does not have information on the 

number of employees at SBIR awardee firms for about one-third of all the 

awards reported by these agencies in 2004 and 2005. 

SBA officials acknowledged that agencies do not routinely provide all of 

the information requested because either they do not capture the 

information in their agency databases or they are not requesting the 

information from SBIR applicants. Officials at the participating agencies 

also cited other reasons for the incomplete data they provided to SBA. For 

example, NIH officials stated that for the past several years, the SBA TechNet annual reporting requirements have changed each year. At the end of

calendar year 2003, SBA changed the field description from “minority” to 

“socially and economically disadvantaged small business.” According to

NIH officials, because the SBIR information is captured by the agency at 

Page 9 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
the time the application is submitted/received, there is a lag in time 

between when application data is input into the NIH database and when 

the agency receives new SBA data field requirements. According to these 

officials, responding to SBA’s changes in field names presents significant 

challenges to NIH for collecting the data needed to complete the Tech-Net

reports, especially if the requirements change annually. As a result, these 

officials stated that complying with the changing requirements 

necessitates significant NIH resources and efforts to research and identify 

the information needed for the new data fields, not all of which can be 

provided. In commenting on a draft of this report, SBA stated that it has 

only requested minor clarifications of data requirements and has not made 

frequent changes as stated by the agencies. SBA believes that this may 

have been caused by lack of clear communication to the agencies. 

The agencies also noted that data for certain Tech-Net fields will be absent 

from their reports to SBA if the data fields do not exist in the NIH 

application or in its awards database. Similarly, USDA officials stated that 

although they try to keep their records as up-to-date as possible, problems 

occur when company or contact information changes and the SBIR 

recipient fails to provide updated information to the agency, such as the email address for the central contact person. Additionally, like NIH, USDA 

officials stated that certain information requested by SBA is not collected

by their agency. For example, as long as SBIR applicants have certified 

that they meet the criterion of being a small business (under 500 

employees), they do not ask for nor do they record information on the 

number of employees in the firm. 

Participating agencies are providing some data that do not comply with 

SBA’s formatting guidance, and while some of these inconsistencies are 

corrected by SBA’s quality assurance processes, others are not. As a result, 

some data elements in the Tech-Net database may be inconsistent or 

inaccurate thereby, compromising the value of these data for program 

evaluation. SBA’s quality assurance efforts focus on obtaining complete 

and accurate data for those fields essential to tracking specific awards, 

such as the tracking number and award amount, rather than on those 

fields that contain demographic information about the award recipient. 

Because the data contained in the public-use section of Tech-Net will be 

incorporated into the government-use section of the database, inaccurate 

data in one section of the database will be replicated in the other, and 

these inaccurate data will limit evaluations of the SBIR program. 

Agencies Generally 

Comply with SBA’s 

Formatting Guidance, 

but Key Data on SBIR 

Award Recipients May 

Be Inconsistent or 

Inaccurate 

Page 10 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Both SBA and agency officials acknowledge that SBA has worked with 

participating agencies since 2000 to help ensure greater consistency in the

formatting of the SBIR award data reported by agencies each year. To 

assist agencies in formatting the data and to minimize the number of 

inconsistencies in the data reported to SBA, SBA has taken a number of 

steps to improve the data formatting process. Specifically, SBA provided 

all of the participating agencies specific guidance on its requirements for 

the data, including its preferred program application for submitting the 

data, the length of each data field, and whether data should be entered as 

numbers, characters, or a mix of both. SBA has also included discussions 

of the Tech-Net database as an agenda item at its quarterly meetings with 

SBIR program managers from each of the participating agencies. 

Additionally, SBA developed a reporting template for agencies to use that 

includes the required data fields and instructions for appropriate data 

entry. 

Under the current process, participating agencies aggregate all of the data

provided by SBIR recipients in their award applications with additional 

information on the award amounts and submit the combined data to SBA 

by March 15 of each year. SBA then electronically checks the data to 

locate and reformat inconsistencies, and adds the data to the Tech-Net 

database. SBA officials told us that when they detect inconsistencies in 

data fields essential to tracking a specific award, such as the award 

tracking number, contact information for the recipient or principal 

investigator, or awarding agency, they contact the agency to obtain the 

correct information. However, SBA does not currently take steps to ensure 

that agency-provided data are accurate and complete. For example, SBA 

does not require agencies to submit a random sample of applications so 

that it can compare the data submitted by agencies with the original 

applicant information to ensure that the submitted data contain all the 

relevant application information. Instead, SBA relies on the agencies to 

fully report all the required application information on the awards they 

make. SBA officials told us that they believe that over the past two years 

the quality and consistency of the data received from participating 

agencies had greatly improved. 

In reviewing the SBIR Tech-Net data that the eight agencies reported to 

SBA in 2004 and 2005, we determined that almost a quarter of the data

provided by five agencies was incorrectly formatted for one or more fields. 

For example, phone number and award amount fields contained both 

characters and numbers and first and last names of principal investigators 

were combined into a single word that was used as both the first and last 

names. Moreover, we found that agency-provided data on gender and 

Page 11 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
socio-economic status for over half of the awards reported in 2004 were 

incorrectly formatted. SBA officials said that detecting and correcting 

some of these formatting errors required a considerable amount of time 

and effort, and that their electronic check does not detect all of the errors 

that we identified. 

The formatting inconsistencies that we identified arise primarily because 

the SBA reporting template used by agencies to submit required data can

be edited. Consequently, agencies can and do edit the template. Agencies 

can change the names of various data fields in SBA’s template, delete

fields altogether, and enter data as numbers, characters, or both, 

regardless of what SBA has specified. One of the data format issues 

identified by SBA was the deletion of fields that agencies do not consider 

relevant or necessary. For example, DOD is the only agency that uses the 

field called “branches” to specify which component of DOD, such as the 

Army, made the award; other agencies have deleted this field because it 

does not relate to the structure of their agency. Similarly, we found 

instances where agencies had entered data on the gender or socioeconomic status of the recipient and award amount in a format that 

differed from the numerical format specified by SBA. For example, one 

agency entered “Y” and “N” rather than “0” and “1.” According to SBA 

officials, by fiscal year 2007, this issue should be resolved because 

agencies will have to submit their data through an Internet interface that 

will contain edit checks and should eliminate many of these problems. 

We also determined that inconsistencies or inaccuracies can arise in 

certain data fields because SBA interprets the absence of certain data 

elements as a negative entry without confirming the accuracy of such an

interpretation with the agency. In other words, if an agency did not 

provide information on whether the recipient is a woman or a member of a 

socio-economically disadvantaged group, SBA has entered a “no” into the 

database. SBA stated that they generally do not contact agencies to obtain 

correct information on data elements that are not used to track specific 

awards, such as gender or socio-economic status of the recipient. 

However, this inaccurate data on the award recipients could limit efforts 

to use these fields for comprehensive program evaluation. 

Information in the Tech-Net database will be used to populate the 

government-use section of the database that SBA is developing (as 

discussed below) for the purpose of supporting SBIR program evaluations. 

However, SBA has no plans to correct any of the errors or inconsistencies 

in the database that relate to the historical data already collected. As a 

result, the errors in the existing database will migrate to the governmentPage 12 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
use section of the database and we believe will compromise the usefulness 

of the government-use database for program evaluation purposes. 

SBA has not met its obligation to implement a restricted government-use 

database that would allow SBIR program evaluation as directed by the 

2000 SBIR reauthorization act. As outlined in the legislation, SBA, in 

consultation with federal agencies participating in the SBIR program, was 

to develop a secure database by June 2001 and maintain it for program 

evaluation purposes by the federal government. SBA planned to meet this

requirement by expanding the existing Tech-Net database to include a

restricted government-use section that would be accessible only to 

government agencies and other authorized users. In constructing the 

government-use section of the database, SBA planned to supplement 

existing data already gathered for the public-use section of the Tech-Net 

database with information from SBIR recipients and from participating 

agencies on commercialization outcomes for phase II SBIR awards. 

However, according to SBA officials, the agency has been unable to meet

this requirement, primarily because of increased security and other 

information technology project requirements, agency management 

changes, and budgetary constraints. SBA’s current goal for having the 

government-use section of the Tech-Net database operational is October 1, 

2006. In commenting on a draft of this report, SBA modified this date, 

stating that they anticipate having the government-use section of the TechNet database operational early in fiscal year 2007. 

SBA Is Five Years 

Behind Schedule in 

Meeting its Obligation 

to Implement a 

Government-Use 

SBIR Database 

To date, with the help of two contractors, SBA has developed the 

framework for importing data into the government-use section of the 

Tech-Net database and for an Internet-based interface that would allow 

agencies and award recipients to access the database and enter 

commercialization information. According to SBA officials, as currently 

envisioned, the government-use section of the Tech-Net database will 

include the records of all applicants, including those that did not receive

SBIR awards. Participating SBIR agencies will be asked to provide a 

unique business identification number, called the Data Universal 

Numbering System or DUNS number, for each award recipient, 

information about SBIR applicants that were not funded, and any 

historical data they have obtained about the commercialization of SBIR 

funded technologies. SBA has developed a standardized electronic 

commercialization questionnaire to gather data for the government-use 

section of the database from applicants and award recipients. Information 

that will be captured in the questionnaire will include the number of SBIR 

awards the company has received, the number of patents or copyrights 

Page 13 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
that have resulted from the award, sales revenue realized as a result of the 

SBIR award, and sources of additional investment funding. SBA officials 

told us that the commercialization questionnaire will become an integral

part of the SBIR application process in the future, and any company 

applying for an SBIR award will be required to complete and update the 

relevant information on phase II SBIR awards previously received by the 

company at the time the application is submitted. According to SBA 

officials, applications will not be accepted until this information is 

completed, and failure to submit the information may affect an applicant’s 

ability to receive an award. In addition, SBIR award recipients will be 

requested to voluntarily update the commercialization information in the 

government-use section of the Tech-Net database annually for a minimum 

period of five years following the completion of their SBIR-funded project. 

Although SBA has developed the majority of the functions needed to 

populate the government-use section of the Tech-Net database with the 

data currently gathered for the public-use section of the database, it can 

not be made operational until certain security issues are resolved. For 

example, because the government-use section of the database will contain 

information from recipients that is considered proprietary and 

confidential, SBA needs to ensure that adequate security measures are in 

place to prevent unauthorized access to the data. This entails the 

successful completion of a series of security and development checks to

ensure that the database system is operating as designed. While SBA 

officials expect the government-use section of the database to be 

operational by October 1, 2006, they also recognize that additional 

enhancements, such as improving the user-friendliness of the interface for

online submission of SBIR data by participating agencies and recipients, 

will be needed after the system is made operational. According to SBA 

officials, the agency’s priority is to get the government-use section of the 

database up and running before considering further improvements to the 

database. 

Page 14 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Seven of the eight participating agencies we reviewed have implemented 

techniques to track the commercialization success of their SBIR-funded 

projects, and the eighth is planning to do so, although the methodological

rigor of these techniques varies significantly. Under the program’s 

authorizing legislation and SBA’s implementation guidance, agencies have 

been given considerable flexibility to design, monitor, and evaluate the 

extent to which their SBIR programs have achieved commercialization 

success. For example, while some agencies use more systematic 

approaches to gathering data, such as periodically surveying SBIR award 

recipients, other agencies are less methodical, choosing instead to follow 

up periodically with a relatively small sample of SBIR award recipients. 

Regardless of how they track commercialization success, both SBA and 

agency officials generally agree that several factors complicate their 

efforts to obtain this information. 

Of the eight agencies we reviewed, five systematically and periodically 

survey SBIR recipients to gather a variety of data on program 

participation, including the recipients’ commercialization experiences. 

Specifically,

Tracking Data on the 

Commercialization 

Success of SBIR

Projects Varies 

Among Agencies and 

Remains a Challenge 

Agencies’ Efforts to Track 

SBIR Commercialization 

Success Vary 

• Since 2000, DOD has systematically gathered information electronically on 

the commercialization of phase II awards from all phase I and phase II 

applicants and award recipients and maintains the information in a 

commercialization database. Commercialization outcomes that DOD 

monitors include such measures as (1) sales revenue from new products 

and non-R&D services resulting from the phase II technology; (2) 

additional investment from sources other than the federal SBIR program 

in activities that further the development, commercialization, or both of 

the phase II technology; (3) whether the phase II technology has been used 

in a DOD system or acquisition program, and if so, which system or 

program; (4) the number of patents resulting from the contractor’s 

participation in the SBIR program; (5) growth in the number of employees 

at the firm; and (6) whether the firm has completed an initial public 

offering of stock resulting, in part, from the phase II project. DOD uses the 

accumulated data to assign a commercialization score to applicants that 

have received four or more prior SBIR awards based on a comparison of 

their commercialization experience with the average experience of other 

comparable applicants and uses the score to help select proposed projects 

for funding. In addition, recipients of phase II awards are required to 

update the information one year after the start of the project, at the 

completion of the project, and subsequently when the recipient submits a 

new SBIR application to DOD. Firms that do not submit a new SBIR 

application are asked to voluntarily provide updates on an annual basis 

Page 15 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
after the completion of their phase II project. According to DOD officials, 

66 percent of phase II award recipients updated their commercialization 

information when they submitted a new application, 11 percent provided 

the information without submitting a new application, and 23 percent did 

not update their information. 

• For over 23 years, DOE has conducted an annual survey of SBIR phase II 

recipients, both active and inactive, to track the commercialization 

success of its SBIR-funded projects. The survey requests recipients to (1) 

list all products and services derived from their SBIR projects; (2) report 

on sales, phase III investment related to these products and service, or 

both; and (3) identify which phase II projects contributed to the 

development of the products and services. According to DOE, 

approximately 90 percent of its phase II recipients respond to these annual

surveys. 

• NASA has systematically gathered information on the commercialization 

of SBIR awards through annual surveys of phase II award recipients from 

1997 to 2002. In these surveys, NASA obtained data on various commercial 

outcomes, such as sales to nongovernment markets of the SBIR-funded 

research results, procurement of the research results by NASA or other 

federal agencies, cumulative private capital funding, royalty and licensing 

revenue from nongovernment sources based on the SBIR-funded research 

results, creation of new business ventures based on the SBIR-funded 

research results, and number of patents and patent applications resulting 

from these awards. According to NASA, approximately 91 percent of its 

phase II award recipients responded to these annual surveys. 

• NIH also surveys SBIR award recipients to gather commercialization 

information. Specifically, in 2002, NIH conducted a comprehensive 

evaluation of its SBIR program. As part of this evaluation, NIH surveyed 

recipients of phase II awards between 1992 and 2001 to obtain data 

relating to the range of SBIR program goals, including commercialization

of research results. According to NIH officials, the 2002 survey results 

formed a baseline that NIH staff could use to systematically monitor and 

evaluate the program. In 2004 and 2005, NIH again contacted award 

recipients to update the information obtained in the 2002 survey. 

Commercialization outcomes tracked by NIH include (1) sales realized for 

a product or service that resulted from the SBIR-funded research; (2) 

status of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process for 

the SBIR-funded research results; (3) receipt of FDA approval for SBIRfunded research results; and (4) receipt of additional non-SBIR funding or

capital. 

Page 16 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
• Since about 1998, NSF has collected historical commercialization 

information from all phase II award recipients at the time an SBIR 

application is submitted. This information is used in the proposal review 

process to help select proposed projects for funding. In 2005, NSF 

developed an annual survey of phase II award recipients that will be used 

to gather information three, five, and eight years following their awards. 

Specific outcomes on which NSF will gather data include sales revenue 

based on the SBIR-funded research results, growth of overall company 

sales and employment, receipt of additional non-SBIR funding, and patents 

related to the SBIR funded research.

In contrast, two of the remaining three agencies we reviewed have focused 

their efforts on gathering anecdotal success stories and conducting 

periodic follow-up with a relatively smaller sample of SBIR award 

recipients. For example, over the past 7 years, EPA has contacted all 

phase II award recipients after their projects end to learn about their 

commercial successes. Based on these contacts, officials estimate that 

approximately 25 percent of the phase II projects funded by EPA have 

been commercialized. EPA defines “success” as the receipt of more than 

$300,000 in revenue from sales of the SBIR-funded project, an amount 

greater than the SBIR funds awarded by EPA. Similarly, USDA has 

periodically contacted a sample of about 20 to 25 percent of award 

recipients to obtain information about sales of their SBIR-funded research 

results. USDA last surveyed its phase II award recipients in 1997. USDA 

publishes the success stories on its Web site and in an agency newsletter. 

About 2,500 people receive the newsletter and USDA makes copies of the 

success stories available at SBIR conferences. According to USDA 

officials, in the future they hope to gather data more systematically and 

conduct site visits to the SBIR firms. The eighth agency we reviewed, 

NIST, has recently developed a Web-based survey that it plans to send in 

2006 to all of its SBIR-award recipients. 

Although each of the eight agencies we reviewed has implemented or 

plans to implement a method for gathering commercialization data, agency 

officials identified several factors that complicate their efforts. First, 

agency officials stated that it is difficult to track commercialization 

because it can take years before companies achieve commercial success.

For example, USDA officials stated that, even over the short term, the 

effort to contact past award recipients consumes considerable effort. 

During this time, companies may move, change names, start a new 

business, or be purchased by other firms, all of which make it difficult for 

the agencies to track and link companies to the original SBIR awards. 

Tracking the 

Commercialization 

Success of the Overall 

SBIR Program Remains a 

Challenge 

Page 17 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Second, because the authorizing legislation lacks a clear definition of what 

constitutes “commercialization” success, agencies not only differed on the 

types of commercialization outcomes they captured, but also in how they 

tracked commercial success. SBA officials acknowledged that its guidance

has provided considerable latitude to agencies on this issue in light of the

wide range of industries represented by the participating agencies. 

Commercialization outcomes captured by the participating agencies 

included sales revenue based on the SBIR-funded research results, receipt 

of additional non-SBIR funding to further develop the research results, 

marketing activities ongoing or completed, and public offering of company 

stock. However, not all agencies are tracking all of these outcomes; 

therefore, assessing overall commercial success of the SBIR program 

across the various agencies remains a challenge.

Third, agency officials stated that SBIR award recipients may be reluctant

to provide information related to their trade and business operations, 

which they consider proprietary and sensitive. Companies are often not 

willing to provide comprehensive data on their sales and particularly the 

investments they receive due to competitive concerns. Finally, agency 

officials told us that past recipients have no incentive to voluntarily 

complete commercialization surveys and update the information on their 

commercial experience unless they are applying for a new SBIR award. As 

a result, they do not expect that a large percentage of recipients will 

complete the information needed for the government-use section of the 

Tech-Net database. Agency officials believe that despite their best efforts, 

the data needed to conduct evaluations of the SBIR program are likely to 

be incomplete. 

In the last 5 years, SBA has been unable to meet the congressional 

directive to develop a government-use database that would provide better 

information on the SBIR program and allow for program evaluation. 

Although it has established a public-use Tech-Net database and has 

worked with participating agencies to achieve greater consistency in the 

data submitted for the database, the quality of the data remains a concern.

The steps on which SBA relies to ensure that data are complete and 

accurate are inadequate and it has no plans to correct errors or supply 

missing data associated with the historical data already in the database.

We believe that unless necessary controls are established and 

implemented to ensure the completeness, consistency, and accuracy of the 

SBIR data reported to SBA by participating agencies, the government-use 

section of the Tech-Net database, which depends on the public-use TechConclusions 

Page 18 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Net database, will be of limited use for program evaluation purposes when

it becomes operational. 

We recommend that the Administrator, SBA, and the SBIR participating 

agencies work together to strengthen efforts to ensure that the data 

collected for SBA’s Tech-Net database are complete, consistent, and 

accurate. 

We provided SBA and the eight SBIR participating agencies included in 

this review a draft of this report for their review and comment. SBA and 

the eight agencies generally agreed with the report’s findings and SBA and 

five of the eight agencies also stated their concurrence with the 

recommendation. Three agencies—EPA, NIST, and NSF—did not indicate

whether they agreed or disagreed with the recommendation. 

In addition, SBA stated that it was concerned that our conclusions did not 

reflect the fact that it plans to have the government-use section of the 

Tech-Net database operational by early fiscal year 2007. We have not 

modified our conclusions because the fact remains that SBA has not met 

the congressional directive to establish a government-use database during 

the last five years. Moreover, throughout this review, SBA officials told us

that the database would be operational by October 1, 2006. However, in its 

official comments, the agency has again modified this date to some time 

early in fiscal year 2007. SBA also provided us with technical comments 

that we have incorporated as appropriate. SBA’s letter is included in 

appendix II and the letters that we received from DOD, NASA, and NIH are 

included in appendix III through V. 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to interested 

congressional committees; the Administrators of the Environmental 

Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and 

Small Business Administration; the Directors of the National Institutes of 

Health, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and National 

Science Foundation; the Secretaries of Agriculture, Defense, and Energy; 

and other interested parties. We will also make copies available to others

upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the 

GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

Recommendation for 

Executive Action 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

Page 19 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me 

at (202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff who made contributions to this report are listed 

in appendix VI. 

Anu K. Mittal 

Director, Natural Resources 

 and Environment 

Page 20 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope and Methods Appendix I: Objectives, Scope and Methods 

Our objectives for this review were to identify (1) the types of data that 

participating Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program 

agencies are reporting to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for 

inclusion in the Tech-Net database, (2) the extent to which agencies 

provide data for the Tech-Net database in a standard format to enable

program evaluation, (3) the extent to which SBA has met the mandate to 

establish by early 2001 a government-use database that can be used for 

program evaluation, and (4) the extent to which participating SBIR 

agencies have developed and implemented techniques to track the 

commercialization success of SBIR projects. 

In conducting this study, we reviewed SBA and the SBIR-related activities 

of 8 of the 11 SBIR participating agencies—Department of Defense (DOD), 

Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National 

Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Department of 

Agriculture (USDA). These eight agencies account for over 98 percent of

the total dollars awarded by the program in fiscal year 2005. To determine 

the types of data these participating agencies are reporting to SBA and the 

extent to which SBA has complied with the requirement to establish a 

government-use database that can be used for program evaluation 

purposes, we compared the provisions in the Small Business Innovation 

Research Program Reauthorization Act of 2000, relevant legislative 

histories, SBA’s Policy Directive implementing the act issued in September 

2002, and other guidance with agency SBIR Tech-Net database reports. We 

identified and interviewed SBIR program officials at each agency and

officials responsible for submitting program data to SBA. For these 

interviews, we used a protocol guide to obtain information on program 

operations, data reporting, data quality, and the Tech-Net database, 

including development of the government-use section of the database. We 

also reviewed documentation from each of the eight agencies and SBA 

regarding data elements and formatting instructions. 

To determine the extent to which data for the Tech-Net database are 

provided in a standard format, enabling program evaluation, we compared 

data provided to SBA by the eight participating agencies with data in 

SBA’s Tech-Net database for fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the 2 most recent 

years for which data were available. The agency data included information 

about the award itself, such as the award amount, a descriptive abstract of 

the project, and a unique tracking number; information about the award 

recipient, such as gender and socio-economic status; and information 

about the type of firm that received the award, such as number of 

Page 21 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope and Methods 

employees and geographic location. To assess the reliability of the data 

provided by the agencies, we reviewed SBA’s data system, internal 

controls, and related guidance, rather than the systems and internal 

controls participating agencies use to create the data provided to SBA. To 

assess the reliability of the data in SBA’s Tech-Net database, we 

interviewed SBA officials about the database and reviewed related 

documentation. We also conducted tests of the data themselves. We used 

analytic software to compare the data provided by participating agencies 

with the data maintained by SBA. We focused our review on data fields 

considered critical by SBA officials, such as the awarding agency, the date 

of award, the award recipient, the amount of the award, and the purpose 

of the award. We also reviewed data fields related to SBIR program goals, 

such as gender and socio-economic status of the recipient, and data on the 

number of employees at the recipient firm. We used GAO’s data reliability 

guidance to identify key attributes of data quality that facilitate program 

evaluation. These attributes include completeness, accuracy, and 

consistency in format. Finally, we reviewed internal quality control 

procedures. We determined that the data are sufficiently reliable for our 

purpose, which is to report on SBA’s efforts to ensure consistency and 

completeness of the data it receives. 

To determine the extent to which the government-use database

requirements have been implemented, we interviewed SBA officials, and 

reviewed related documentation, such as minutes from meetings of SBA 

and SBIR program directors, and overviews of the existing and planned 

data systems. In addition, we attended a demonstration of the proposed 

Internet interface for the government-use section and interviewed the 

current contractor assisting SBA about implementation progress. We also 

reviewed a contractor-prepared analysis of the functional and data 

requirements for the integration of the public- and government-use 

sections of the Tech-Net database. At each of the eight participating 

agencies, we interviewed SBIR officials regarding the extent to which SBA 

had consulted them in the development of the government-use database. 

To determine the extent to which participating agencies have developed 

and implemented techniques to evaluate commercialization success of 

SBIR projects, we reviewed agencies’ documentation about their 

commercialization assistance and monitoring efforts. Specifically, we 

reviewed surveys that agencies had administered to award recipients, 

resulting reports on survey results, and anecdotal descriptions of 

commercialization success. We also reviewed provisions in SBIR 

legislation, relevant legislative histories, and SBA’s Policy Directive 

regarding commercialization of SBIR-funded projects, as well as past GAO 

Page 22 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope and Methods 

reports. In addition, we interviewed officials at each of the eight 

participating agencies to obtain information on the specific 

commercialization outcomes they monitor, the history of each agency’s 

data collection efforts, and the agencies’ experience in obtaining such 

information from current and past award recipients. 

We conducted our work from April 2006 through September 2006 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Page 23 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix II: Comments from the Small Appendix II: Comments from the Small Business Administration 

Business Administration 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix. 

See comment 1. 

See comment 2. 

See comment 3. 

See comment 4. 

Page numbers in draft 

report may differ from 

those in this report. 

Page 24 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix II: Comments from the Small 

Business Administration 

See comment 5. 

Page 25 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix II: Comments from the Small 

Business Administration 

The following are GAO’s comments on the Small Business 

Administration’s (SBA) letter dated October 6, 2006. 

1. We revised footnote 2 to more clearly reflect the 11 SBIR participating GAO Comments agencies. 

2. We revised the text to clarify this statement. 

3. We deleted reference to SBA in footnote 7. 

4. We added SBA’s position to the report. 

5. We added SBA’s position to the report. However, because SBA has not 

met the congressional deadline to develop a government-use database,

we did not modify our conclusions. 

Page 26 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Appendix III: Comments from the Defense 

Department of Defense 

Page 27 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of 

Defense 

Page 28 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix IV: Comments from the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Page 29 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix V: Comments from the National 

Institutes of Health 

Page 30 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research
Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Anu K. Mittal, (202) 512-3841 

In addition to the contact named above, Cheryl Williams, Assistant 

Director; Bernice H. Dawson; Vondalee R. Hunt; and Marcus L. Oliver made 

key contributions to this report. Also contributing to this report were 

 Nancy Crothers, Grant Mallie, Gregory Marchand, and Rebecca Shea. 

Page 31 GAO-07-38 Small Business Innovation Research

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