The score came back. The science was fine. Here's what wasn't.
At first glance, there was no obvious reason for the score.
A researcher came to me after getting her first SBIR score back. She had a strong scientific background, a solid publication record, and years of NIH funding experience. The application was well written. The science was defensible. The score was not fundable.
When we went through the summary statement together, the pattern was familiar.
The significance section read like the introduction to a journal article. Beautifully written, thoroughly referenced, completely field-focused. What it didn't do was make the commercial case. Who were the customers? What was the market? Why did this problem represent a real funding opportunity beyond its scientific importance? Those questions went unanswered because in every grant she had written before, they were never the questions.
The commercialization plan was two paragraphs at the end of the document. It mentioned broad clinical utility and the potential for licensing partnerships. Reviewers noted it was underdeveloped. That's a diplomatic way of saying it read like an afterthought, which it was, because in an R01 the equivalent section genuinely is an afterthought.
The team section listed her publications, her grant history, and her collaborators' credentials. What it didn't address was who on the team had ever moved something from a lab toward a product. Nobody had, and nobody had thought to address it directly, which left reviewers to draw their own conclusions.
The science was fine. Better than fine, actually. But the application had been written for the wrong audience, through no fault of hers, because nobody had explained that the audience had changed.
Her resubmission scored in the fundable range. We spent most of our time not on the science but on the framing: the commercial story, the team narrative, the reviewer psychology of a mechanism that exists specifically to move research toward real-world impact.
If your academic grant instincts are strong, they will serve you well in this space. Just know which ones to override.
Got an SBIR score that doesn't match the strength of your science?
A strong scientific background doesn't automatically translate to a strong SBIR application. If your score came back lower than expected, let's look at what the reviewers were actually responding to and identify where the framing, commercialization story, or team narrative may be holding the application back.
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