Notice Number: NOT-OD-19-088

Key Dates
Release Date: March 4, 2019

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Purpose

Effective immediately, NIH, CDC, and FDA will use the Business Type information provided in the System for Award Management (SAM) entity record to identify a small business organization as Women Owned or Socially and Economically Disadvantaged at time of application submission. This information was previously collected using the "Women Owned" and "Socially and Economically Disadvantaged" check boxes in the Small Business Organization Type field on the SF424 R&R form submitted with grant applications. This change is expected to reduce applicant burden, improve data quality, and ensure consistent information across federal systems.

Although the organization designations continues to be available to agency staff, the small business organization type information is no longer visible on the assembled application images used for review. This provides the added advantage of removing any potential reviewer bias based on the presence of the check boxes.

Implementation Details

• The DUNS provided on the SF424 R&R form is used to look-up the SAM information.
• The SF424 R&R data entry screen in ASSIST no longer allows small business organizations to use the Small Business Organization Type check boxes.
• Small Business Organization Type information submitted using other submission methods will not be retained. Applicants who provide the information will receive a warning message indicating the data will not be saved and SAM data will be used instead. The warning will not prevent application submission.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

NIH SBIR/STTR Program Office
Telephone: 301-435-2688
Email: sbir@od.nih.gov
Website: https://sbir.nih.gov/