SBIR 08.3 and STTR 08.B Solicitations Issued for Public Release

To: Florida Photonics Cluster members

An item of potential interest to you, in case you didn't receive it via another channel. Researchers at CREOL and other UCF units will be happy to discuss potential partnerships with you also.

Jim Pearson
FPC Executive Director

The SBIR 08.3 and STTR 08.B solicitations were issued for public release on July 28, 2008

The DoD SBIR 2008.3 and STTR 08.B solicitations were pre-released at http://www.dodsbir.net/solicitation on July 28, 2008. For SBIR 08.3 the Air Force, Army, Navy, MDA, DLA, and OSD and for STTR 08.B the Air Force, and MDA invite small businesses to submit proposals under these solicitations. During the pre-release period, which ends on August 24, you may contact the topic authors directly (contact information is listed with the topic) to ask technical questions about specific solicitation topics. The DoD will begin accepting proposals for both solicitations on August 25, 2008 and will close to proposals for both solicitations on September 24, 2008 at 6am EST. Plan ahead and submit your proposal early to avoid the risk of website inaccessibility due to heavy usage on the final day.

Technical Q&A through SITIS

Once DoD begins accepting proposals on August 25, 2008, no further direct contact between proposers and topic authors is allowed, but proposers may submit written questions through the SBIR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS), in which the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing. SITIS closes to new questions on September 10, 2008. All questions and answers will be posted through September 24, 2008. All proposers are advised to monitor SITIS at http://www.dodsbir.net/sitis during the solicitation period for questions and answers and other information relevant to the topic under which they are proposing.

DoD SBIR/STTR System Maintenance

Maintenance on the DoD SBIR/STTR system is planned for August 2008 during non-business hours. The first of two maintenance periods will be Saturday, August 2, 2008 from 5:00AM-9:00AM EST. During maintenance periods, the system may be unavailable. If you have any questions, please contact the DoD SBIR Help Desk.

Commercialization Update Effort

Please note that the definition of 3rd Party Revenue (previously 3rd Party Sales) has been updated. For more information, see Guidance for Completing the Company Commercialization Report: Instructions and Definitions on the Company Commercialization section of the DoD Submission site.

In order to properly evaluate your firm's commercialization efforts, as well as to reliably measure the performance and impact of the SBIR and STTR programs, you must review and ensure that your Company Commercialization data is complete, current, and accurate. The Company Commercialization Report must list every prior SBIR and STTR Phase II award received from any federal agency, regardless of whether the Phase II has commercialized to date. Phase III sales and investment figures, as well as manufacturing-related R&D and other commercialization information, must be updated within the last 12 months for all Phase II awards.

Password Security Policy

Effective measures to reduce system vulnerability and increase security include creating a strong password to your account and changing it frequently. This is your defense for protecting your firm's proposal information. Choose a strong password that does not contain easily recognizable information like firm names, phone numbers, addresses, or other information that someone could guess. Your new password MUST be at least 10 characters and contain the following: at least 1 upper case letter; at least 1 lower case letter; at least 1 number; and at least 1 special character (e.g. $, ?, !, etc.).

DoD SBIR Help Desk

If you have any questions please contact the DoD SBIR Help Desk at 866-724-7457 or by email at sbirhelp@brtrc.com.