Rep. Ken Calvert, D-Calif., has filed the DOD Entrepreneurial Innovation Act, a bill renewing his 2021 effort under H.R. 2005 to strengthen how the Department of Defense identifies and invests in promising small business technologies.
According to a press release from Calvert’s office Wednesday, the bill would require DOD to pinpoint top Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs for inclusion in future budgets—improving transparency and ensuring innovative projects advance beyond early research phases.
Five SBIR/STTR Candidates Per Service Branch
Each service branch would select its five most promising SBIR/STTR programs based on their potential to cut costs, enhance capabilities or deliver new technologies.
“To support America’s national security mission, we need to leverage technological superiority into an advantage on the battlefield,” Calvert said. He is continuing his SIBR/STTR advocacy in the House bill, as “small businesses and entrepreneurs are the drivers of innovation in the defense sector and beyond.”
Calvert pointed out that his proposed legislation responds to long-standing DOD challenges, wherein many SBIR projects stall after early development and fail to scale for deployment. By prioritizing commercialization and private-sector innovation, the measure seeks to help DOD accelerate adoption of advanced technologies and maintain an edge over competitors, such as China.
In a broader SBIR/STTR effort in the Senate, Sens. John Curtis, R-Utah, and Chris Coons, D-Del., members of the Small Business Committee, proposed in May the Research Advancing to Market Production, RAMP, for Innovators Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at empowering innovative small businesses to commercialize their technologies.
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