The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program was created in 1982 by the Small Business Innovation Development Act. The program is designed to stimulate technology innovation by small businesses, provide technical and scientific solutions to challenging problems, and encourage the marketing of the resulting new technologies in the private sector. Federal agencies with more than $100 million in extramural research and development (R&D) are required to allocate percent of their research budgets to small businesses. Such funds from all federal agencies amounted to approximately $ billion in fiscal year 1998. The . Department of Defense (DOD) has the largest single SBIR program ($540 million), approximately.
