41 



have had continuous funding between Phases I and II. This DOE- 

 developed system has received very favorable reaction from the 

 small business community. 



EMPHASIS ON HIGH TECHNICAL QUALITY OF AWARDS 



The proposal review process has been designed to maximize the 

 quality of proposals selected for awards, while maintaining 

 fairness and timeliness of the process. The attainment of high 

 technical quality of SBIR projects has been made possible by 

 adopting the principle of merging contributions made to SBIR by 

 different departmental elements into a single SBIR fund. This 

 has enabled us to select for awards proposals of the highest 

 technical quality, regardless of the technical topic area. 



By submitting well-designed topics for inclusion in the 

 solicitation, and by publicizing the solicitation within the 

 respective technical communities, the various programs can 

 increase the probability that funds contributed to SBIR will 

 return to the respective programs in the form of SBIR-supported 

 projects. To achieve overall program balance, the number of 

 technical topics included in the solicitation is roughly 

 proportional to the respective technical program's contribution 

 to the SBIR fund. 



