2023 America's Seed Fund Week Agency Reverse Pitch: EPA

Hello and thank you for your interest in EPA's SBIR program. I am April Richards, the program manager for EPA's SBIR program. So I always like to start with the mission because I do feel strongly about it. And I think we have a really nice, short, very important mission which is to protect human health and the environment. And like all of the SBIR agencies, we get to use the the program to support technologies that help us meet our mission. So that is our goal is to seed technology innovation that will help us protect the planet. So to save the planet we have about $5 million a year. And like the other small agencies, we do one funding cycle per year. So same staged approach where phase one is proof of concept. For EPA that means $100,000 for six months. For phase two is really the development and commercialization of the technology. And again for EPA that's $400,000 for two years. We do have something that we call the commercialization option, which is $100,000 supplement that we can provide you to match third party investment. Just a way to supplement your phase two to move you in that direction. And we do everything as contracts. So just again, what's sort of unique about EPA's SBIR program for applying we do, you've got the message that we have a fairly modest budget, so we have fairly specific topics. If you submit a proposal, it should be responsive to those topics. And that really is just a way to give small businesses a fighting chance of having a good success rate in getting their proposal accepted. And then if you are funded through EPA's program, we bring you into the EPA SBIRA family. We like to provide all of our companies with a technical topic contact in epa, someone that really cares about that area and can help you navigate EPA's perspective. We do provide commercialization support. So in phase one we provide support in addition to your award. And then we do have a really well oiled machine for communications. So we keep our website updated, we have a newsletter where we highlight projects. We do a lot of social with LinkedIn and Twitter and I'm a firm believer in getting the word out and helping that sort of self perpetuate the success of your projects. And of course the goal is to save the planet, so we appreciate your help with that. So again, like other small agencies, we have an annual solicitation and our annual solicitation goes out in June and for this year that should be the end of June. We will post information on our website right there at this funding opportunities link. If you did apply, you would apply through FedConnect, which is just a portal between the federal government and the private sector. And then the best thing, if anyone is interested in our program, if you think you have an environmental technology and it might fit EPA's program, then subscribe to that listserv right there. And then as soon as the topics are finalized and the dates for the solicitation are announced, we will push that out through our listserv. So let me spend just a little bit of time on the topic areas because I think this is the most important thing for epa. We need you to have a technology that would fit one of our areas. So the broad focus areas are listed here and they stay the same mostly from year to year. They align with the research areas of EPA and also with the media office. So they include water, air and climate, Homeland security, materials and circular economy, safer chemicals and risk assessment. So for this year these are not finalized yet, but we do. These are the topics that I think we will have for 2023. So for clean and safe water, we'll have a water reuse topic, probably a PFAS topic. Those are the perfluorinated chemicals and probably a sensor topic. For air quality and climate, we'll have an indoor air quality topic, something on small sources of air pollution, and maybe a PFAS topic. For homeland security, we're looking at indoor mapping. For circular economy, there'll be a food waste and recycling topic similar to last year, will probably have a construction materials topic focused on reuse. And for safer chemicals, again, we're planning on repeating two topics that we had last year, this 6ppt quinone and the enhanced efficiency fertilizers. So should you apply again, our budget is modest, so the program is competitive and we want you to be responsive. I am more than happy to help give some feedback on your ideas to see if it's a fit for our program. And this link right here, how to Apply is a really nice link that'll take you through some of the steps that you need to do to get ready to apply registrations and topics and submitting proposals and all of that good stuff. And just a quick note on proposal evaluation selection. We've really streamlined this part of our process and we are getting awards out in about 120 days from the day the solicitation closes to award start date. So we're proud of that. We have a big emphasis on commercialization even in phase one. And this diagram just gives you an indication of how we're reviewing proposals. So again, thanks for listening. A couple take home messages if you decide to apply. These are kind of just a recap of what I've said already, but make sure your technology is responsive to the topic areas. Read the solicitation carefully so you don't make any careless mistakes. There are quite a few registrations for most agencies, so make sure you start those early. Develop a strong and readable proposal. Address all of the review criteria because you will be reviewed, you will be rated on all of them, and you want to get the best score you can on each one. And of course, don't wait to the last minute. All right, thank you very much.