§655 Pilot Technology Access Program

Summary

Creates a Pilot Technology Access Program that gives awards to Small Business Development Centers. The Small Business Administration, working with NIST and NTIS, will run the program and pick Centers by competition. The SBA will use fair, merit-based rules that look at a Center’s ability to serve local industries, link with federal and state help, and keep providing services after the pilot ends. Applicants must match each award dollar for dollar, and no more than 50 percent of that match may be waived as overhead or in-kind. Awards fund increased access for small businesses to online databases and technical experts by paying access costs, training businesses, and setting up public access points; Centers may contract with private firms and prior awards under section 648a may be renewed. Two years after the date the first award under section 648a is issued, the General Accounting Office must send an interim report to the House Committees on Small Business and on Science, Space, and Technology and to the Senate Committees on Small Business and on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Three years after that date, the GAO must send a final report to the same committees evaluating the program’s effect on small business productivity and innovation. The law authorizes $5,000,000 for each of fiscal years 1992 through 1995, with those funds available until spent. Centers are urged to seek other funding and to help move technologies from labs and universities into businesses; federal agencies are encouraged to use Centers to help small businesses with procurement and commercialization.