An official website of the United States government
The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.
The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document
Frequently Asked Questions about NIH SBIR/STTR applications and grants on the NIH website. This is a comprehensive list of common questions with thorough plain language answers and examples. It is the most popular page on the NIH SBIR website.
Funding Topics - find the NIH institute that is the best fit for your technology, but then contact the Program Officer to confirm.
NIH RePORTER Matchmaker is another tool that is helpful for initially identifying, which NIH institute maybe the best fit for your technology. On this site, you can enter your abstract text and similar funded abstracts will be identified, as well as the funding institute. Be sure to only look at abstracts with grant numbers beginning with R41, R42, R43, R44, or U44 as these are the small business grant types.
NIH Study Section Identifier Search your topic of interest and small business EX/ “toxicology small business.” Through this search relevant small business study sections, study section descriptions, and rosters will be displayed. It is worth contacting the Program Officer to confirm the correct study section if you plan to add this information to your cover letter. Please note this is optional! You don’t have to identify a study section for your application; the NIH CSR group performs this task post-submission.
Application Cover Letters These are highly underutilized; please note they are optional! To ensure your application comes to the correct institute state this in your cover letter; otherwise, NIH CSR chooses the best institute fit. Additionally, you can recommend a study section in your cover letter, but again this is optional. In addition, if you identified a study section, but on the roster, a particular reviewer is in conflict you can state this in the cover letter as well. Reviewers do not see application cover letters.
SBA.gov Guide 13CFR121 defines what constitutes an employee and the SBA SBIR website provides answers to other common eligibility questions. A few additional notes:
Please submit one week before the application due date. Too often, we hear of applicants who waited until the day before or day of to submit, they could not resolve errors, and thus their application was rejected.
