ATP Important Facts

• Basic Mission: Technology to benefit the U.S. economy. The goal of the ATP is to benefit the U.S. economy by cost-sharing research with industry to foster new, innovative technologies. The ATP invests in risky, challenging technologies that have the potential for a big pay-off for the nation's economy. These technologies create opportunities for new, world-class products, services and industrial processes, benefitting not just the ATP participants, but other companies and industries--and ultimately consumers and taxpayers--as well. By reducing the early-stage R&D risks for individual companies, the ATP enables industry to pursue promising technologies which otherwise would be ignored or developed too slowly to compete in rapidly changing world markets.

• ATP = Industry-Driven. Research priorities for the ATP are set by industry, not the government. For-profit companies conceive, propose and execute ATP projects and programs based on their understanding of the marketplace and research opportunities. The ATP selection process, which includes both government and private-sector expert reviewers, identifies the most meritorious efforts from among those proposed by industry.

• ATP Product Development. The ATP does not fund companies to do product development. The ATP funds R&D to develop high-risk technologies up to the point where it is feasible for companies to begin product development, but that they must do on their own. And, of course, companies also bear the full responsibility for production, marketing, sales and distribution.

• ATP = Fair Competition. ATP competitions are rigorous but fair, and based entirely on technical and business merit--free of political influence. Small companies compete just as effectively as large companies. More than half of the ATP awards have gone to small companies or to joint ventures led by a small company.

• ATP = Partnership. The ATP is not a free ride for winning companies. On the average, industry funds more than half the total R&D cost for ATP projects. The ATP is a new model of government-industry cooperation for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

• Tax credit ATP. R&D tax credits are an important policy tool for encouraging research and innovation by industry. But tax credits are not a substitute for the ATP. A company must have significant taxable income to benefit from tax credits; many of the small, start-up companies funded by the ATP would receive no benefit from tax credits. Tax credits reduce the cost of industrial R&D, but they don't change the type of R&D being performed. Tax credits have not fostered the longer-term, high-risk, R&D sponsored by the ATP.

• ATP = Evaluation. Critical evaluation of the ATP's impact on the economy is an important part of the program. To measure the long-term effects of ATP R&D on the economy, the ATP has established economic analysis procedures that are pushing the state of the art in evaluating the long-term outcomes of an R&D investment.