SBIR Solicitation and Proposal Submission Process Supporting Statement

OMB Control No. # 693-0031 – NIST Generic Request for Customer Service-Related Data Collections

NIST SBIR Solicitation and Proposal Submission Process

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. Explain who will be surveyed and why the group is appropriate to survey.

Each small business that submitted a Phase 1 proposal in response to the annual solicitation will be surveyed to gain insight into how they perceived the service they received throughout the process. Only those small businesses that submitted a proposal would be familiar with the process. The purpose of the survey is to identify areas in the solicitation and proposal submission process that can be improved.

2. Explain how the survey was developed including consultation with interested parties, pre-testing, and responses to suggestions for improvement.

This survey is unchanged from the approved survey that has been used in previous years. The responses received have provided meaningful feedback to the program to allow for process improvements.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted, how customers will be sampled if fewer than all customers will be surveyed, expected response rate, and actions your agency plans to take to improve the response rate.

This survey will be sent via mail to all small businesses that submitted a proposal in response to the annual solicitation. Based on past responses, we expect an 80% response rate. Since providing contact information is optional, no follow-up is done to improve the response rate.

4. Describe how the results of the survey will be analyzed and used to generalize the results to the entire customer population.

Results will be used to identify opportunities for improvement to both the solicitation and process. Responses are also compared from previous years to determine success of modifications.