Accelerating... New Ideas, New Technologies, New Markets

Regardless of potential value, they are dropped entirely or pursued so slowly they fall to more aggressive foreign competitors.

The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) bridges the gap between the research lab and the marketplace stimulating Prosperity Through Innovation. The ATP can help you develop the technologies you need to bring new, innovative products and services to market more quickly—the scientific and engineering advances you need for dramatic improvements in process or manufacturing technologies—the technical edge for tomorrow’s markets.

"ATP means the opportunity to take a revolutionary idea and drive it against all odds to make it a reality."

What Can The ATP Offer You?

• Early Financial Support.
The ATP provides cost-share funding in the critical early stages of R&D, when research risks are too high for other sources of funding. It’s very patient capital—ATP is interested in the long run, not the next quarter’s earnings.
The ATP can fund up to $2,000,000 in direct costs over a period not to exceed three years for a single company and up to half of the total project costs for a maximum of five years for a joint venture involving more than one company.

• Research Support.
The ATP encourages R&D partnerships and consortia, and can provide guidance in putting together a joint research venture. As part of the highly regarded National Institute of Standards and Technology, and with extensive contacts in industry and academia, our project managers often can help link you to the additional technical resources you need.

• Recognition.
The ATP’s rigorous peer-review system provides an independent, objective, and confidential evaluation of the strength of your R&D and business plans. Many firms have reported that ATP support was an important factor in securing additional funding.

• Independence.
Companies control and retain the intellectual property rights to the results of their research.

"One nice thing about the ATP (as opposed to other government programs) is that it allowed us to protect proprietary information, plus we can publish what we like."

What Is The ATP Looking For?

• Technologies with benefits that extend well beyond the companies involved in the project.
• Technologies with broad potential applications, particularly across different industrial sectors; and
• Path-breaking technologies that open up new potential markets or make possible wholly new products or industrial processes.

"ATP provided us with the necessary financial bridge to move forward with our research...it would not have been done otherwise."

Is The ATP Right For You?

ATP funds a unique group of projects. In addition to innovative technologies with the potential for broad national benefits, the ATP looks for:

• Projects where the proposers have a clear vision of the marketplace and a commercialization plan for the proposed technology. (The ATP does not fund product-development or commercialization activities.)
• Projects that have clearly identified the technical risks and propose a credible approach to solving the problems.
• Projects that need the ATP. Projects where the technical risks mean that the project would not be funded at all, or would be funded at a level so low that progress would be too slow to be at the forefront of rapidly evolving world markets.

"The ATP stepped up to provide us funds and took risks where venture capitalists would not."

ATP Success Stories

• A suite of process-monitoring and control technologies that are cutting costs and improving quality throughout the U.S. auto industry.
• A benchtop bioreactor, now in clinical trials, capable of growing large amounts of human stem cells isolated from bone marrow for cell replacement therapy.
• A computer programming tool, already in commercial use, to simplify the task of writing software for parallel-processing computers.
• A novel set of protein-focused biotechnologies to help in the understanding of disease, promising to reduce the cost of new drugs while improving treatments.
• Prototype bridge beams made of carbon- and glass-reinforced polymer composites that are lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and expected to improve bridge durability and reduce overall life-cycle costs.
• A thick-film processing technology for high-temperature superconductors to improve the quality of cellular phone service with fewer land-based towers.
• New process control software that increases consistency and yield in semiconductor manufacturing and is transforming the industry and giving U.S. firms the global edge.
• Miniaturized, automated DNA-analysis "chips" that are becoming invaluable for rapid, accurate genetic analysis.
• Technology for creating highly focused intense x-ray beams yielding dramatic improvements in applications ranging from magnetic data storage, to drug design, to mammography.

"[Our] members regard an ATP award as the gold medal in the research Olympics."

How Do You Get Started

ATP awards are made solely on the basis of announced, peer-reviewed competitions. ATP competition announcements appear in the Commerce Business Daily and are widely publicized. For information on current ATP competitions, year-round pre-proposal submissions, copies of the ATP Proposal Preparation Kit, more details about the ATP, or to be added to the mailing list:

Visit us on the World Wide Web:
www.atp.nist.gov

Call us:
1-800-ATP-FUND or 1-800-287-3863
(fax) 301-926-9524

E-mail us:
atp@nist.gov

Write us:
Advanced Technology Program
NIST
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 4701
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-4701

The Advanced Technology Program is part of the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

September 1999
Last Update: February 17, 2004