The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest agency in this program with approximately $1 billion in SBIR grants annually.
[1] In April 2021, the DoD reported on a lack of due diligence for SBIR recipients, which permitted funds to go toward companies linked to the People's Liberation Army.
[2] In 2022, the program was reauthorized with additional disclosure requirements for companies that have ties to "any foreign country of concern, including the People’s Republic of China.”[3] Each Federal agency with an extramural budget for R&D in excess of $100,000,000 must participate in the SBIR Program and reserve at least 3.2% of such budget in fiscal year 2017 and each fiscal year after.
[4] In 2010, the SBIR program across 11 federal agencies provided over $2 Billion in grants and contracts to small U.S. businesses for research in innovation leading to commercialization.
[19] As of 2014 federal agencies with external R&D budgets over $1 billion were required to fund STTR programs using an annual set-aside of 0.40%.