January 30, 1996

Prepared by: Silber & Associates
Dr. Bohne Silber
13067 Twelve Hills Road
Clarksville, MD 21029-1144

The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) offers cost-shared awards on a competitive basis to industry for the development of high-risk, enabling technologies with significant commercial potential. The ATP received its first appropriation ($10 million) in 1990, allowing it to make eleven multi-year research awards.

Through October of 1995, the program has funded a total of 276 projects, awarding nearly $1 billion to companies and technology coalitions around the country to foster cutting-edge research with large potential economic benefits for the United States. The companies have provided approximately $1 billion in matching funds.

The Survey of 1990-1992 ATP Awardees is an extensive and in-depth look at the program's impact on companies who received funding during ATP's initial three years. It is a snap-shot at a particular point in time. The program effects are dynamic as companies progress in their R & D and move to commercialization activities. Nearly all of the companies surveyed are still in the process of carrying out the research to develop their technologies. Therefore, the focus of the survey is on early effects of the ATP awards on the companies that received the awards, and not on the longer-term economic impacts that are expected to accrue not just to the awardees, but to extend well beyond them. The broader economic benefits to the economy is the topic of other studies.

Detailed telephone interviews were conducted with participating organizations covering their technological advances, progress toward commercialization, the effect of the award on the company's ability to pursue high-risk research, the impact of the award on the company's competitive standing and stability, and the success or failure of collaboration among companies.

The Survey of ATP Awardees was conducted by Silber & Associates, an opinion research firm in Clarksville, Maryland, and independent contractor to NIST. Dr. Bohne Silber, an industrial-organizational psychologist and president of the firm, interviewed by telephone all 125 companies and consortia who participated in the ATP from 1990 to 1992.

NIST contacted the ATP participating organizations in advance of the survey to notify them that they would be contacted by Dr. Silber and to request their cooperation. Silber & Associates followed up with a phone call to schedule an interview with the lead researcher or manager in charge of the ATP effort. About 25% of the interviews were conducted with more than one representative from the organization--usually a technical person paired with an administrator or manager.

The interviews were conducted January 5 through June 1, 1995, several years after the start-up of the projects. (The average length of the 1990-1992 awards was 3 years, but many projects actually started six months to a year following announcement of the award.) At the time of the interviews, most of the

participants were well into their research, and a few of the first-round ATP awards had reached their conclusion. About 45%, in fact, reported having completed at least 50% of their research and development goals at the time of the interview, and another 40% said they had completed 75% or more.

Silber & Associates worked closely with the ATP Office to develop the survey questionnaire, which was pre-tested and revised several times before the final version evolved. Two versions of the questionnaire were created: a "long form" administered to all Single Applicants and select Joint Venture Participants (JVP) who were viewed by the JVP Leader as most likely to commercialize a result of the ATP project, and a "short form" administered to JVPs who were viewed by the JVP Leader as less likely to be involved in commercialization efforts. The only difference between the two versions was a 48-question section on commercialization and business goals.

The questionnaire, which appears in Appendix A, contained a combination of open- and closed-ended items. Emphasis was placed on collecting qualitative information about the early impacts of the award. The long form required an average of 90 minutes to administer; the short form took 70-75 minutes.

The 125 interview participants--30 companies from ATP's 1990 competition, 67 from 1991, and 28 from 1992--represent a broad cross-

section of U.S. high-tech companies, large and small. The companies' median number of full-time employees1 is 115, although the range is 3 to 9,000. The organizations also vary in their longevity: nearly 20% have been around since the turn of the century or even before, compared with 25% who set down stakes within the past decade.

Around seven percent of participants surveyed are non-profit organizations created for the sole purpose of managing an ATP joint venture. These non-profit organizations were leaders of joint ventures. Universities and other non-profit ATP participants, which are numerous, were not included in the survey. Among the revenue-earners surveyed, the median revenue generated last year was $33 million, with 9% of the companies bringing in less than $1 million.

A complete list of survey participants appears in Appendix B.

Ten organizations characterize themselves as predominantly defense contractors, and six of the ten said the ATP award has played a significant role in their conversion to more commercial applications. "The award was pivotal," commented a representative of a large corporation, "in [our research center's] plan to diversify its core capability. The center's capability was focused on military. ATP gave us an opportunity to use the capability in a growing commercial market..." Another participant added, "The ATP award is considered very prestigious and was extremely important in helping us reorient from defense-oriented research to more commercial research. Having won an ATP award, we're pursuing more commercial opportunities."

The 1990-1992 participants represent 60 different projects: 43 are Single Applicant endeavors, and 17 are Joint Venture projects involving a total of 82 joint venture partners. The average award per project was $2.97 million.

The awards, listed in Appendix C, funded a broad range of high-risk ventures, from development of technologies for ultra-high density magnetic recording heads to fabrication technologies for making clinical prosthetics from biomaterials. Positive impacts on the environment, health, or public safety were noted by the respondents for 34 of the projects.

Over half of the 60 projects involve development of an entirely new product or manufacturing process, according to the lead researchers on those studies, and 62% of the participants anticipate their company will commercialize a product or service based on technology resulting from the ATP research.

1. Organizations with multiple sites were asked to give the number of full-time employees at the site where the ATP research was being conducted.