The erosion of informal relationships with federal agencies has fundamentally altered how universities assess risk. When routine questions go unanswered and faculty fear surveillance of their collaborations, innovation suffers as researchers retreat from proposals and international partnerships.

Faculty exhaustion has deepened beyond pandemic-era stress into permanent strain. At teaching-intensive institutions, even small seed grants require navigating weeks of bureaucratic obstacles. In the humanities, major NEH program cuts and shifting donor priorities toward immediate impact have left experienced scholars struggling to sustain long-term critical work.

Counter intuitively, the most stable research leaders practice restraint rather than bold transformation. By refusing to outpace federal guidance and clearly communicating realistic institutional capacity, they’ve maintained steadier operations. Many institutions have abandoned broad, small-scale bridge funding for targeted faculty cohorts receiving intensive support, while others invest in shared proposal development resources and grant-writing consultants. Yet leaders agree the critical factor isn’t funding, it is morale.

Research administrators increasingly spend time interpreting political signals and strategically reframing work. Some train faculty to avoid problematic keywords, while others align messaging with phrases like “Make America Healthy Again”. This strategic repositioning reflects a troubling reality: research is becoming a political act.

The shift toward industry partnerships to replace declining federal support raises fundamental questions about who determines research priorities and why. Leaders fear that political instability and funding volatility will force institutions to abandon long-term research strategies for short-term survival, undermining the patient cultivation necessary for transformative scholarship.

Despite these challenges, cautious optimism persists. Cross-institutional humanities collaborations are emerging, STEM fields are organizing around AI initiatives, and some leaders embrace moral clarity by honestly communicating what they cannot support. Many focus on strengthening internal collaboration rather than external competition.

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Of the eleven federal agencies participating in the SBIR program and the five participating in the STTR program, the major donors (approximately 70% of funding) are the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These agencies fund innovative research that meets their objectives. All have unique missions and should be viewed as distinct donors.

Generally speaking, there are two types of agencies that participate in SBIR/STTR. The first falls into the category of agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which use their research budgets to improve human health or science, education and national welfare. These agencies will typically advance general topics of research and allow the principal investigator and the small business to present their ideas for how to help them achieve their missions. This type of research is investigator-initiated, and often the researcher or company can choose to apply for a grant under SBIR or STTR.

Other agencies, such as the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), fund companies and academic institutions to develop technologies to meet their own goals. These agencies have much more specific needs in mind when they solicit research, and their solicitations, which address much more specific topics, are typically awarded in the form of contracts. It is not uncommon for those solicitations to specify whether they will fall under SBIR or STTR.

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), the original charter of the SBIR/STTR program was to address four goals:

• Stimulate technological innovation
• Use small business to meet federal R/R&D needs
• Foster and encourage participation in technological innovation by socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses, and those that are 51 percent owned and controlled by women
• Increase private sector commercialization of innovation derived from federal R/R&D, thereby increasing competition, productivity, and economic growth

Since the SBIR/STTR program started in 1982, the charter has expanded to:

• Require evaluation of commercial potential in Phase I and Phase II applications
• Provide seed capital for early stage R&D with commercial potential

This source of funding is of importance to institutions of higher education that contract with small businesses (under 500 employees) to plan and deliver high risk technological and innovative programs that will eventually have a high probability to be commercialized. Thus, a small business will develop a partnership with a non-profit research institution, in most cases a university or a federal laboratory such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The focus will be on the transfer of technology from the Research Institution (RI) to the small business.

There are three phases to the program, including:

• Phase I – Feasibility – approx. $50K-$250K
  • Proven and validated proof of concept
  • Confirmed value proposition
• Phase II – Prototype – approx. $500K- $1.6M
  • Working and testing the prototype
  • Commercialization partners identified
• Phase III – Commercialized – $0 for SBIR
  • Bringing the solution to market

Everyone wins when small businesses and academic institutions collaborate with each other under SBIR/STTR to achieve the goals of specific government agencies, and ultimately get innovative technology to market. This collaboration can assist universities transfer technology, help small companies access remarkable facilities, highly skilled people, intellectual property, and through both mechanisms, help everyone achieve collective goals.

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Every donor is unique. For example, the institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have dissimilar missions, and each has its own culture and requirements. The same can be said of the Department of Defense (DoD) and a myriad of other donors. Chasing the money rather than good ideas is a major flaw. Donors do not fund those focused on money, they fund those who are passionate about a good idea that aligns with their goals. Consequently, here are the five things you need to know about the language and culture of any donor before you write:

• What are the priorities of the donor? Each donor has its own priorities. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) encourages interdisciplinary programs and transformative ideas, and their definition and characteristics appear on their website. The DoD has five major foci: peacekeeping and war-fighting efforts, homeland security, evacuation and humanitarian causes. Each of these subcategories has their own mission and language. Turning to foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seeks to understand the world’s inequities. “Whether the challenge is low-yield crops in Africa or low graduation rates in Los Angeles, we listen and learn so we can identify pressing problems that get too little attention. Then we consider whether we can make a meaningful difference with our influence and our investments, whether it is a grant or a contract.” As this demonstrates, each donor clearly addresses their funding culture via their priorities.
• What is the mission of the donor? All donors have their own missions, which give us an understanding of how they visualize their funding priorities. For example, the NSF’s mission is: “To envision a nation that capitalizes on new concepts in science and engineering and provides global leadership in advancing research and education.” The NIH’s mission is: “To seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.” The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) run by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command of DoD has a similar emphasis to NIH, but its mission is to relate health research to the armed forces. Even though both NIH and DoD fund innovative ideas to combat disease, their missions and foci are different.
• What have donors funded in the past and why? One of the best insights into a funding agency is who and what they funded in the past and how much money they awarded. Federal donors list abstracts of winning proposals, along with the name of the funded institution and the Principal Investigator/Project Director. Accordingly, we can instantly know who they consider credible and their focus. Foundations will often describe what they have funded in the past on their website. Their 990pf tax forms will also show how their funds were allocated. The decisive question for you to ask is how your idea and their funding patterns match.
• What are the evaluation criteria for awarding grants? How grants are evaluated is one of the best indicators of the donor’s culture. This will include the evaluation criteria, who the evaluators are and how they are chosen. For some donors, such as NIH and NSF, reviewer selection is not a blind process as reviewers who are chosen have a deep understanding of the agency culture. In the case of foundations, it is more difficult to discern who the reviewers are, but one good way is to understand the vision of the leadership and the makeup of the board, which will be reflected in the reviewers chosen.
• What is the language of the donor? In many cases donors speak different “languages”, which are in the same family of languages. For example, the various US Department of Education Title Programs (e.g. Title III or Title VI), address different topics. Some address underrepresented groups, others international and others centers of excellence. Similarly, NSF directorates and NIH institutes have different missions, speak to different audiences, and address their vision of the world on their own terms. It is these “languages” that need to be understood, spoken, and incorporated into grants in order to give you the competitive edge.

In conclusion, submitting similar proposals to different donors is a fatal flaw. In order to succeed, we have to understand first and seek to be understood secondly.

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The DoD is mission-driven. Thus, it funds research projects that are most demonstrably relevant to its mission. The majority of research supported by the DoD draws predominantly from engineering, information, and physical sciences. On a comparatively more limited scale, medical, social, and life science projects are also funded. Below are four steps that you will need to follow to get started:

Step 1: Get to know your agency

To familiarize yourself with the DoD, along with its many sub-agencies, you will need to understand who they are and what they wish to fund. Thus, you should:

• Learn their “language”
• Identify their priorities
• Know how they announce funding opportunities
• Check if they fund unsolicited proposals and what percentage of their grants are unsolicited

Step 2: Get to know your Program Officer (PO)

DoD Program Officers play a significant role, since they will be a determining factor in deciding if your research fits the priorities of the particular sub-agency and if so, will move your project forward. In order to assess interest in your project, the PO should be your first contact. Thus, you should:

• Find out what program(s) the PO is responsible for
• Do your homework – ask yourself why they should be excited by your proposed work
• Speak with the PO, but do not cold call – first send a short email summarizing your comments/questions
• Articulate how your research will help the agency and its programs
• Concentrate on the big picture, especially outcomes/deliverables
• Be as specific as possible
• Be persistent, but do not become an annoyance
• If your research does not fit, move on

Step 3: Get to know intramural researchers in your field

Getting to know intramural researchers in your field can be an important step in working with the DoD and its sub-agencies. This is significant because you will have colleagues and allies who are interested in your research, and who may be the ones who will review your proposal and decide its fate. One way to foster collaboration between you and them is for you and/or your students to spend time in their labs. Finding out the answers to the following questions will facilitate your efforts:

• What do intramural researchers in your field see as important issues?
• Can you collaborate with them?
• Do they host academic researchers in their labs in the summer?
• Do they host students for internships?

Step 4: Understand the funding process of the agency

To address mission relevance, you must first become familiar with the goals and focus of the program to which you are applying. Once you have this information, you can describe in your proposal the ways in which your research furthers these goals. You should also convey how your project will advance technology readiness levels. Include any translational or transformative capacities your research will have on other fields or programs within the DoD. Once you have mastered the sub-agency goals and foci, you need to know:

• What steps are initially required to apply?
• Do you need to first submit a white paper or a pre-proposal?
• What are the key areas that you must address and how can you address them?
• What are the format and structure requirements?
• What are the review criteria?

Augmenting your research portfolio is one of the many reasons why you should explore grants from the Department of Defense. In 2016, the DoD is funding $2.1 billion for basic research and $4.7 billion for applied research. Thus, applying for DoD funding might be an excellent way to supplement your portfolio with additional funding alternatives to the more “standard” National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Science Foundation (NSF) grants that most researchers pursue.

Interested in finding out more? Join us for our DoD Webinar.

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