by John Ujvari
RTP, NC – The 2003 SBIR/STTR event series culminates on December 3rd. As North Carolina’s information resource for R&D funding, the SBTDC will host the Third Annual Southeastern SBIR/STTR Biotechnology Conference. This conference wraps up a very successful year of outreach that included numerous half-day workshops around the state as well as the full day, phase 2 proposal preparation workshop.
The SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) programs provided over $1.6 Billion in funding to small, innovative US-owned businesses in FY 2002. The SBIR/STTR programs are the premier funding mechanisms for early stage R&D that will likely lead to commercializable products and services. Since the programs’ inception in 1982, over $12 billion via 48,000 awards, have been provided to small businesses in the United States through the 10 Federal agencies that participate.
Whether SBIR/STTR is new to your vocabulary or you are a seasoned awardee, this year’s conference will provide significant value. The best way to learn about the SBIR/STTR programs is to hear about them right from the source.
Morning Session
The southeast’s premier SBIR biotechnology conference will offer access to five SBIR participating agencies.
· National Institutes of Health
· Department of Defense
· National Science Foundation
· Department of Agriculture
· Department of Energy
Discover the wide variety of SBIR/STTR research interests at these agencies via presentations from agency representatives. During ten minute one-on-one sessions to be held throughout the day, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with agency reps. Use this opportunity to ask agency specific questions about your proposed work directly to the program managers themselves. Also interact with SBIR winners, university faculty, potential partners, and sponsors.
Afternoon Sessions
Join nationally recognized experts Greenwood Consulting Group as they shed light on the perplexing world of cost proposals and project/records management. While aimed at SBIR/STTR competitors, these unique sessions have proven valuable for any recipient of government contracts and grants. In the cost proposal segment, you will learn the intimate details of a budget for a grant or a contract. What may appear to be a dry topic is actually quite exciting. Exciting? Consider this example. You are attempting to meet the December 1 NIH deadline. It’s Thanksgiving evening and you are pounding out page after page of your proposal. You work diligently all weekend, and on Sunday night, the eve of the deadline, you notice that an indirect rate was never developed for inclusion in the proposal’s budget. What is included in an indirect rate? Should I have negotiated this rate with NIH by now? Is there a maximum that I can request? The questions that fill your mind seem endless. You pull an all nighter and somehow calculate that your business’s indirect rate is a modest 15%. You submit the proposal and breathe a sigh of relief.
Little did you know that a big chunk of funding may have just been forfeited. You may be surprised at how small the 40% indirect rate that NIH allows in a Phase 1 proposal is relative to your true indirect costs. Continuing with our example, if your direct costs equated to $60,000 you would have requested $9,000 (15% of your direct costs) to cover your indirect costs. Having done your research beforehand and determined that your business’s true rate is, say, 38%, your indirect request would have been $22,800. Therefore you sacrificed $13,800. Not something to sneeze at, especially for a start-up.
Once you win an award, the work is of course the research that you proposed, as well as project and records management. Keeping records to the government’s satisfaction is key.
In this second afternoon session, learn about:
· Unallowable Costs – How to identify and avoid them
· Budgeting – Insights on actually receiving and spending the award funds
· Terminology – Government accounting terminology
· Audits – What to expect from government audits and how to survive
WHERE: Wednesday, December 3, 2003, 9am – 5pm
WHERE: NC Biotechnology Center, Research Triangle Park, NC
COST: $75 (Conference, Cost Proposal and Grants Management sessions and lunch)
$60 (Cost Proposal and Grants Management sessions only)
$95 at the door
REGISTRATION: www.sbtdc.org/events/sbir/southeastern_biotech/
For more information contact John Ujvari, SBIR Program Specialist, with the SBTDC.
Phone: 919-962-8297
Email: sbir@sbtdc.org
Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org
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