This should feel personal to a lot of us. I have hopes of applying to the Small Business Innovation Research fund (https://seedfund.nsf.gov), a program that gives small companies a good chunk of money without taking equity, in order to encourage development of technologies deemed of national importance. I’d be curious if anyone here has tried applying in the last 18 months.

I was helping some people working on their phase I SBIR throughout the first year of Trump, and they often didn't know who to report to, as the firings were so relentless and pointless and completely disorganized. They got the highest possible rating upon completion, but have not been able to apply for Phase 2, so the project is effectively dead as they pursued other opportunities.

It's hard to imaging a more wasteful and destructive set of actions over the past year, except just shutting it all down. Money was still spent, less than usual, but in a way that ensured it was squandered, and that seeds that were planted could not grow.

However, it was apparently reauthorized on April 14, as my NIH newsletter this week linked to this April 21 announcement that SBIRs and STTRs are back!

https://grants.nih.gov/news-events/nih-extramural-nexus-news...

SBIRs have been mucked up since last fall. The program lapsed and it just got reauthorized for certain departments. Without that reauth only those who had phase 1's could apply for phase 2's.

I know several people who have. They cannot even get awarded funds right now. All funding is being directed to grant mills.