Deciphering Open Topics

The Air Force awards a significant number of SBIRs through Open Topics. For Example:

This open topic is heavily focused on Dual-Purpose Technologies, but as far as Air Force priorities go, they give a long list of Modernization Priorities and leave the door open to “Blue Sky” submissions that are not even on their list.

Like a parent with their kids, the Air Force may claim that they love all of these topics equally, but the data tell a different story.

SBIR proposals take time to prepare, and the SBIR cycle is long and slow. You have to make the most of each cycle. If you have more than one idea, or if you are still tailoring your proposal, how do you decide what to focus on?

I’ve previously mentioned the importance of choosing a topic that aligns with your business objectives, but as long as you are keeping that in mind, what do you think the next most important data point might be?

Look at the soliciting agency’s average spending on each of their stated priorities. Especially what the trend lines look like.

How?

SBIR.gov doesn’t make that easy. The SBIR Research Portal does.

It doesn't get much better than an exponential growth curve. Hypersonics is clearly a Modernization Priority the Air Force is dead serious about., and it only take a one-word search to prove it.

That’s a fantastic example, but are all Priorities that well funded?

Not remotely.

Military Infectious Diseases may be a Modernization Priority, but it averages less than 3 Phase IIs a year.

Take some time. Do the Research. It’ll save you in the long run. In a future post we’ll go into how to refine search terms using the keyword map. For now, here’s a few more of those Modernization Priorities with the 4-year average investment by the Air Force (no, I didn’t give you all of them).

Yes, these are in dollars, and as you can see there is a wide disparity.