STTR
A federal programme like SBIR except that it requires a formal partnership between a small business and a research institution, with a minimum share of the work assigned to each. The small business must lead and hold the award.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Small Business Technology Transfer
In detail
The minimum split is the defining constraint: a set percentage of the work to the company and a set percentage to the research partner, with the remainder allocated freely. A project that would naturally sit almost entirely at the university does not fit.
STTR is a smaller appropriation than SBIR and fewer agencies run it, which makes the calendar thinner and the competition differently shaped.
Against SBIR
SBIR permits but does not require a research partner. STTR requires one and prescribes the split. They are separate solicitations, and an award under one does not qualify a company for the other. In our eligibility vocabulary they land in the same applicant class — business — because that is who the notice says may apply, and the partnership requirement is a term of the notice rather than an eligibility class.
How GrantTrove stores it
- `elig_note` keeps eligibility wording that the structured vocabulary cannot express, in the source’s own words. A partnership requirement is exactly that kind of wording.
- Where a source category has no honest home in our vocabulary it stays unmapped rather than being forced into the nearest one, because a wrong mapping puts a record in front of someone it does not fit.
Common questions
Who holds an STTR award?
The small business. The research institution is a subawardee.
Can the university do most of the work?
No. The split is prescribed and the company must carry its stated minimum.
Are STTR notices in the catalogue?
Where the feeds we have connected publish them, yes. The data sources page lists exactly which feeds are connected.