Probability of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Commercialization as a result of Participating in the Navy\u27s Transition Assistance Program

Commercialization (private sector or Non-SBIR federal funding) of federally sponsored innovations is a key congressionally mandated goal of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. While much attention has focused on quantifying and assessing the commercial outputs of the SBIR program, limited research exists on the impact that business advisory support initiatives have on project commercialization. These programs, such as the Navy\u27s Transition Assistance Program (TAP), seek to augment the business capacity of SBIR/STTR award recipients by providing information and resources focused on facilitating the commercialization process. I hypothesize that these programs increase the probability of commercialization success for participating SBIR Phase II projects. To test this hypothesis, I employed a logistic regression model exploring commercialization outcomes from participants and non-participants from the Navy\u27s Transition Assistance Program (TAP). A dataset comprised of 993 Navy Phase II projects awarded between 2005 and 2008 was used to populate the model. The self-reported commercialization outcomes contained in the dataset include 537 Navy TAP projects, and a comparison group of 456 Navy Phase II projects who opted not to participate in the program during the years covered. The resulting analysis found that the odds of success given that a project participated in the Navy TAP ranged from 1.5 to 6.2 times the odds of success for a non-participating project, depending upon firm characteristics. It was also found that for every dollar invested in the Navy TAP, $38 dollars in commercialization outcomes were generated. This research demonstrates that external business support can be an effective policy option for impacting the probability and magnitude of SBIR commercialization success