Breakout Summary Report

This breakout session will explore strategies to increase collaboration between the DOE Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awardees and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility and Atmospheric Systems Research (ASR) community. The session aims to highlight the benefits of connecting SBIR-funded technology developers with ARM/ASR, discuss pathways to support innovation in measurement and data technology, explore ways to speed up adoption of emerging technologies into ARM and the ASR community, and promote the use of ARM as a useful facility to support SBIR projects.

This session will explore ways to raise awareness within the SBIR community about ARM’s mission, its available resources, and collaboration opportunities while also providing SBIR awardees the opportunity to present on their recently awarded projects.

The session aims to:

• Increase SBIR community understanding of ARM's capabilities, including its world-class instrumentation, extensive observational datasets, and deployment sites in diverse climates, and ARM/ASR measurement needs.

• Share best practices for facilitating collaboration and provide SBIR awardees with insights on how to connect with ARM and leverage ARM data for technology development.

• Provide ARM with awareness of new and emerging technologies being developed through SBIRs.

• Generate actionable ideas for expanding ARM’s engagement with SBIR to enhance the development and deployment of innovative measurement and data processing solutions.

• Connect ARM and SBIR investigators with overlapping interests.

This session brought together the SBIR, ARM, and ASR communities to foster engagement and collaboration. The session provided an overview of ARM’s facilities, showcased SBIR projects through lightning talks, and facilitated discussions on overcoming challenges in connecting SBIR innovations with DOE initiatives.

• Difficulty for new companies “breaking in”

• Timing in SBIR Topics and DOE Initiatives are offset

• Science goals and commercial goals often differ

• Paths to ARM adoption of SBIR instruments is unclear

These items are further expanded on below in the key findings.

Difficulty for new companies “breaking in”

New companies often face challenges related to developing relationships with existing DOE programs like ARM.  There would be value in increasing networking opportunities with DOE programs relevant to the SBIRs as well as dedicated points of contact that can help introduce SBIRs to the programs and their data users.

Timing in SBIR Topics and DOE Initiatives are offset

The timing for SBIR calls is generally after DOE announces specific program rollouts such as the urban integrated field laboratories or the marine observations.  This leads these programs to develop plans and budgets towards specific goals that oftentimes do not account for SBIR products that may be available at a future time.  Establishing early communications between the programs and the SBIR recipients could help.

Science Goals and Commercial Goals Often Differ

SBIR calls can be very targeted towards topics such as urban or unattended marine operations which can be problematic for companies that are working towards commercializing these products to a larger market.  There is sometimes a competition between science impact and commercial viability.  It could be valuable to establish co-design workshops that bring together scientists, SBIR companies, and DOE program managers to define shared objectives and ideas for SBIR calls that could result in more successful commercialization that also are scientifically impactful.

Paths to ARM Adoption of SBIR Instruments is Unclear

Similar to adoption of SBIR products in other DOE programs, there is a struggle to understand how to transition SBIR development to ARM adoption.  While ARM does have a budget for instrument development to bring new instrumentation into ARM, it is not transparent how that is done.  It could be beneficial for ARM to develop a “testbed” program where SBIR technologies could be evaluated within ARM’s operations with clear milestone-based evaluations and requirements towards broader ARM adoption.

Other

Somewhat in line with developing contacts noted above for new business but more broadly for all businesses, having a directory of contacts in ARM or ASR related to proposed technologies that can serve as advisors would be beneficial.

See key findings.

See key findings.

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Continue to look at opportunities for SBIR recipients to connect with the ARM and ASR community such as future breakout sessions.

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