Opportunities for Funding and/or Engagement

The Technology Transition and Commercialization Team (T2C Team) administers the DARPA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Transition & Commercialization Support Program (TCSP). The TCSP is a voluntary participation program offered to DARPA-funded SBIR/STTR Phase II projects during the contract period of performance (typically 24 months). The goal is to increase the potential for these companies to move their developed technologies, solutions or products beyond Phase II and into the Department of Defense military Services, other federal agencies and/or the commercial market.

Congress established the SBIR Program in 1982 to provide opportunities for small businesses to participate in Federal government-sponsored research and development (R&D). The goals of the SBIR Program are to: stimulate technological innovation; use small business to meet Federal R&D needs; foster and encourage participation by socially and economically disadvantaged small business concerns (SBCs), and by SBCs that are 51 percent owned and controlled by women, in technological innovation; and increase private sector commercialization of innovations derived from Federal R&D, thereby increasing competition, productivity and economic growth.

Ms. Nichols started her 25-year career with the Department of Defense at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where she held a variety of positions in financial management, personnel management, program analysis/management, computer information systems development, and training from 1988 until 2004.

By design, DARPA reaches for transformational change instead of incremental advances. But DARPA does not perform its engineering alchemy in isolation. It works within an innovation ecosystem that includes academic, corporate and governmental partners, with a constant focus on the Nation’s military Services, which work with DARPA to create new strategic opportunities and novel tactical options.

The objective of the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program is to identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and introduce them to Department of Defense needs as well as DARPA’s program development process.