Sponsors (2)
Introduced July 25, 2025 by Roger Williams · Last progress July 25, 2025
The bill broadens and standardizes access to SBIR/STTR funding, improves oversight and national-security protections, and accelerates some late-stage funding — but it also tightens eligibility and IP rules, imposes caps and administrative burdens, and limits agencies' ability to target underrepresented groups, creating a trade-off between wider distribution/security and reduced flexibility for some applicants.
Small businesses nationwide — including first-time entrants and firms in rural or underrepresented areas — will gain easier, lower-cost entry to SBIR/STTR funding through a new Phase 1A ($40,000) with 5‑page proposals plus expanded outreach and agency participation, increasing early-stage access.
Small businesses across the program stand to benefit from limits that reduce concentration of awards (e.g., cumulative caps) and statutory proposal caps that reduce mass submissions, which can widen opportunities for more firms and reduce reviewer burden.
Taxpayers, national-security stakeholders, and awardees benefit from strengthened national-security protections (due diligence, denial authority for foreign-ties, IP-transfer limits, IG/intel coordination, GAO study) that reduce technology-exfiltration risk and improve program risk oversight.
Small businesses with past foreign collaborations, co-authorships, or other foreign ties face higher risk of disqualification or denial, reducing access to federal R&D funding and creating uncertainty about eligibility.
Historically disadvantaged groups (by race, gender, ethnicity) may lose targeted support because the bill prohibits consideration of race/gender/ethnicity and bans diversity/equity plans in award decisions.
Caps on cumulative awards, per-firm limits, proposal caps, and an annual receipts eligibility cap will force some firms (especially affiliates, spinouts, and R&D-heavy firms) to choose among projects or be excluded, potentially disrupting ongoing R&D and commercialization plans.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Revises SBIR/STTR rules: raises set-asides, creates large strategic awards, adds Phase 1A, caps cumulative funding, tightens foreign‑risk screening, and allows direct-to-Phase-II.
Increases and reshapes how federal SBIR and STTR research funds are set aside and awarded: raises minimum SBIR and STTR set-aside percentages starting in FY2026, creates a new “strategic breakthrough” allocation for much larger Phase II-style awards (up to $30 million aggregate per firm), and creates a new small, early-stage Phase 1A track for firms that have never received SBIR/STTR funding. It also caps total Phase I/II funding per firm, limits proposal submissions and PI concurrent roles, expands direct-to-Phase-II authority, and tightens foreign‑risk screening and reporting requirements. Makes many administrative and data changes to program tracking, requires agencies to adopt timelines and streamlined processes (including 90-day decision windows for certain awards), and adds new recordkeeping and waiver procedures for national-security exceptions. Several changes take effect in fiscal year 2026.