A PI with a part-time appointment with a small business concern who has concurrent commitments or appointments with organizations in addition to the small business concern would deem each commitment as a portion of 100 percent of his or her total professional effort. As responsible stewards of funds, the NIH is concerned that the PI have the time available to carry out the proposed research activities. Therefore, the PI should take care to assure peer reviewers and NIH staff that the time proposed for a particular project is reasonable and that he or she has sufficient time available from among his or her total professional commitments to devote to this project. The NIH will not support any market research under its STTR program. Neither will it support studies of the literature that will lead to a new or expanded statement of work.
Literature searches where the commercial product is a database are acceptable.
It includes various types of research, such as the size of potential market and potential sales volume, the identification of consumers most apt to purchase the products, and the advertising media most likely to stimulate their purchases.