Can small business compete effectively for funding under the Commerce Departments Advanced Technology Program?
Although the ATP makes no special allowance for small businesses, the results of the first ten years of the program show that small and mid-sized firms in fact are very successful in the rigorous, hard-fought ATP competitions. Since 1990, the ATP has selected a total of 768 projects for cost-sharing awards to individual companies or industry-led joint ventures to develop high-risk, enabling technologies that would stimulate the U.S. economy by making possible important new products, services, or industrial processes for the world’s markets. Approximately 65 percent of these have gone to individual small businesses or to joint ventures led by a small business. Other small businesses also are involved in significant numbers in joint R&D ventures supported by the ATP, forming strategic partnerships with larger firms. The small businesses that win ATP awards do so entirely on merit: no extra points are given for being a small business. Innovative technical ideas that have substantial poten
