The NOAA Technology Partnerships Office (TPO) builds collaborative relationships between NOAA researchers and regional, national, and global partners, and fosters entrepreneurship and small business growth. Make an impact and grow your innovations with us!
-- Kortney Opshaug, Blue Ocean Gear & Richard Riels, Crab Raft
The NOAA Technology Partnerships Office (TPO) is serving the U.S. economy by investing in impactful solutions, transferring innovative technology to the marketplace, and facilitating strategic partnerships to enhance and deliver on NOAA’s mission.
TPO routinely works in developing partnerships with private entities in marketing commercial technologies to improve NOAA’s data collection efficiency. This supports weather and environmental data collection that private companies could use to deliver novel weather predictions and climate information.
We fund innovative small business proposals for the development of technology, products, and services related to NOAA’s mission with excellent commercial potential.
We ensure rapid and impactful transfer of inventions and innovative technology developed by NOAA researchers to the commercial marketplace.
Public-private partnerships are vital for bringing private sector innovation and agility into the public realm and NOAA’s research and development enterprise.
Rooted in Federal Law, our Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Technology Transfer (T2) programs capitalize on successful commercialization of innovative technologies in support of a strong and resilient U.S. economy.
References:
Federal Tech Transfer Act of 1986
Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982
NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory and Global Systems Laboratory and the artificial intelligence startup Brightband have entered into a two-year Cooperative Research And Development Agreement (CRADA) that will optimize a vast NOAA-managed archive of observational weather data for training artificial intelligence (AI)-based weather forecasting applications.
On November 15, 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Phase I Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. NOAA Phase I SBIR awards provide up to $190,000 to fund a six month period of performance for conducting feasibility and proof of concept research. The tentative award start date for the FY25 competition is August 1, 2025.
When federal researchers and staff create or invent something, they also create intellectual property (IP). As with all federal employees and agencies, NOAA staff are required to report all IP created during the course of their employment through a process called invention disclosure.
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants will provide early-stage capital for 17 U.S. small businesses The NOAA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program has awarded $11,009,857 in Phase II SBIR grants to 17 small businesses. This seed funding will support research and development of innovative technologies in the NOAA mission space.
NOAA and Esri will create a prototype for a one-of-a-kind, fully interoperable open data platform to provide equitable, actionable and ready-to-use ocean and coastal data for decision makers and communities.