Products from the Advanced Technology Program at NIST

Economic Studies, Survey Results, Reports and Findings from the Advanced Technology Program at NIST

Findings from the Advanced Technology Program's Survey of ATP Applicants 2004  Findings from the Advanced Technology Survey of ATP Applicants 2004

Price: $20 (Price outside the U.S., Canada and Mexico is $40)
Order number: PB2007-111377

The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) accelerates the development of high risk and innovative research that has the potential to broadly affect the economy through partnerships with the private sector. Companies seeking to partner with the Advanced Technology Program submit proposals to the ATP. Proposals must be for the development of innovative technologies that could not obtain private funding due to the high technical risk and proposals must have the potential to produce widespread benefits to the economy and society. Proposals are evaluated for technical and economic merit in a rigorous competitive review process. The Survey of Applicants 2004, conducted in collaboration with Westat, asks all applicants, both awardees and nonawardees, to answer questions about the types of proposals submitted to ATP, the characteristics of companies who submit these proposals, and the satisfaction of applicants with respect to the proposal submission, review and feedback that they receive during the process.

Altogether, 934 applicants were eligible to respond to the survey, including 40 companies that were selected for an ATP award and 894 companies that were not selected for funding. Data collection was carried out from January to May 2006. The response rate for Awardees was 100% and for Nonawardee applicants was 44%. Overall response was 46%. Most companies applying to ATP are small companies. More than two-thirds of applicants (69%) has fewer than 50 employees and only 15 percent had 500 employees or more.

 

 

Performance of Second 50 Completed ATP ProjectsPerformance of 50 Completed ATP Projects: Status Report - Number 2

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Order number: PB2002-101826

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More efficient use of energy, more efficient medical treatments that cost less and cause less pain, the capacity to process growing volumes of data, better vehicles, and improved position in the highly competitive international electronics market—these are among the many significant achievements of projects supported by the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) over its first decade. Results from the first 50 completed projects are strong for ATP, with estimated benefits far outweighing the entire cost of ATP to date.

Policymakers, program administrators, business managers, and others in this country and abroad get a comprehensive look at results from ATP-funded research projects. This report provides at least partial answers by assessing the first 50 completed projects—approximately 10 percent of the projects funded by the ATP from 1990 through 2000. The performance metrics show how each of the 50 projects performed in terms of new technical knowledge created and disseminated, direct commercialization of new technologies, and overall project effectiveness.

 

 

Between Invention and InnovationBetween Invention and Innovation: An Analysis of Funding for
Early-Stage Technology Development

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Order number: PB2007-100662

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The purpose of the Between Invention and Innovation project is to support informed design of public policies regarding technology entrepreneurship and the transition from invention to innovation by providing a better understanding of the sources of investments into early-stage technology development projects. National investment into the conversion of inventions into radically new goods and services, although small in absolute terms when compared to total industrial R&D, significantly affects long-term economic growth by converting the nation’s portfolio of science and engineering knowledge into innovations generating new markets and industries. Understanding early-stage technology development is important because a national and global capacity to sustain long-term economic growth is important.

The project has sought to answer two sets of questions:

  • What is the distribution of funding for early-stage technology development across different institutional categories? How do government programs compare with private sources in terms of magnitude?
  • What kinds of difficulties do firms face when attempting to find funding for early-stage, high-risk R&D projects? To what extent are such difficulties due to structural barriers or market failures?

The report pursued two approaches in parallel to arrive at a reasonable estimate of the national investment in early-stage technology development: first, learning from the observations of practitioners in the context of a series of workshops held in the U.S., and second, collecting the data available on early-stage technology development investments from other studies and from public statistical sources. These approaches have been supplemented by four case studies conducted by a team of Harvard researchers and a set of forty-six in-depth interviews of corporate technology managers, CEOs, and venture capitalists conducted on ATP's behalf and with ATP direction by Booz Allen & Hamilton.

 

Survey of ATP Applicants 2002, Portfolio of Survey FactsheetsSurvey of ATP Applicants 2002,
Portfolio of Survey Factsheets

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Order number: PB2007-100663

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The Advanced Technology Program's Economic Assessment Office presents a portfolio of its most recent survey results.  The portfolio includes two pockets of inserts (left and right) featuring customer satisfaction survey results from 2002 applicants.

 

  • Applicant Satisfaction with ATP Staff
  • Time and Cost for ATP Proposal Preparation
  • ATP Proposal Debriefing: Nonawardee Views
  • Applicant Perceptions of the ATP Proposal Process
  • Applicant Views of the ATP Proposal Preparation Kit and Electronic Submission System (ESS)
  • Applicant Views of the Usefulness of ATP Information Resources
  • Funding Sources for Innovation R&D
  • ATP Awards Attract Additional Funding
  • What Happens to Nonfunded Projects?
  • Why Do Companies Apply for ATP Funding?
  • ATP Helps Companies Work with Universities
  • ATP Fosters New R&D Directions and Partnerships
  • ATP Funds High-Risk and Long-Term R&D Projects
  • ATP Promotes Public Benefits and Knowledge Diffusion
  • Descriptive Statistics for ATP Applicants: Company Size and R&D Effort
  • Survey of ATP Applicants 2002: Methodolody and Respondent Characteristics

 

Survey of ATP Applicants 2000Survey of ATP Applicants 2000

 

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Order number: PB2007-100664

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In the competition for the year 2000, ATP evaluated 417 R&D project proposals involving 555 applicant organizations. Of these, 58 projects, representing 85 organizations, were selected for funding awards. The number of company applicants exceeds the number of project proposals submitted to ATP because some ATP projects are joint ventures.

ATP accelerates the development of innovative technologies for broad national benefit through partnerships with the private sector. To help assess the effectiveness and impact of the program, ATP's Economic Assessment Office (EAO) sponsored a survey of all company applicants to ATP in the year 2000 funding competition. The Survey of Applicants 2000 is an important evaluation tool for assessing overall characteristics of applicants to ATP, as well as comparing program effects on awardees and nonawardees. The survey findings provide valuable evidence on the impact of ATP.

 

Measuring ATP Impact: 2004 Report on Economic Progress, September 2004

Measuring ATP Impact: 2004 Report on Economic Progress, September 2004

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Order number: PB2006-101677

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The Report on Economic Progress presents findings from ATP economic and policy studies and provides data about ATP-funded project outputs, outcomes, and impacts on the U.S. economy and society. For instance, entrepreneurs will be interested to learn that one-third of the applicants from the 2000 ATP competition had fewer than 10 employees. Innovators will find that, to date, almost 1,200 patents have resulted from just 736 ATP projects.  Award statistics from all our competitions present an aggregate view of our program, and short case studies provide snapshots of a few completed projects.

 

Findings from Advanced Technology Program's Survey of Joint VenturesFindings from Advanced Technology Program's Survey of Joint Ventures

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Order number: PB2007-100665

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The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) conducted a survey of all joint ventures that received an ATP award between 1991 and 2001. The survey was conducted to understand the motivations and impacts of joint venture collaborations. The findings show that the most important motivation for participants to form a joint venture was to benefit from the complementary R&D expertise of their partners. In fact, most ATP joint ventures would not have formed without an ATP award. The majority of respondents reported that the joint venture undertook research that represented a new direction for both the company and the industry. ATP-funded joint ventures are more ambitious than other research in their industry and more technically challenging than typical company projects. These joint venture projects have higher technical risk and longer time horizons for realizing revenues or cost savings than typical projects at their companies.

About one-third of all joint venture participants reported that their ATP projects are based on university research with over half of the largest joint venture participants (in terms of number of partners) reporting that their research is based on university research. An ATP award fosters collaboration and trust among joint venture partners, and ensures stability of company funding for the project. The joint venture partners reported that the exchange of technical know-how was critical in achieving research success.

ATP awards funding to companies to undertake high-risk and innovative research that has the potential to create broad-based benefits for the U.S. economy and society. The ATP funds both single applicant companies and joint ventures, which must have at least two for-profit companies, but can also include universities, other companies, and non-profit research organizations. The funding for a joint venture is structured to encourage these collaborations. ATP funds joint ventures for up to five years, with no limit on the funding amount other than the availability of funds. Joint venture participants contribute at least 50 percent of total project costs. In contrast, single applicant companies may receive up to $2 million over three years for direct costs. Large, single applicant companies must share at least 60 percent of total project costs.

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