About TIP

The America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Sciences (COMPETES) Act, Pub. L. 110-69, was enacted on August 9, 2007, to invest in innovation through research and development, and to improve the competitiveness of the United States. Section 3012 of the COMPETES Act established TIP for the purpose of assisting U.S. businesses and institutions of higher education or other organizations, such as national laboratories and nonprofit research institutions, to support, promote, and accelerate innovation in the United States through high-risk, high-reward research in areas of critical national need. High-risk, high-reward research is research that:

1. has the potential for yielding transformational results with far-ranging or wide-ranging implications;
2. addresses critical national needs that support, promote, and accelerate innovation in the United States and is within NIST's areas of technical competence; and
3. is too novel or spans too diverse a range of disciplines to fare well in the traditional peer-review process.

Key Features of TIP

• Novel Purpose:  TIP addresses societal challenges not being addressed in areas of critical national need with benefits that extend significantly beyond the proposers.
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• Societal Challenges:  TIP concentrates on those challenges that justify government attention.
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• Scientific & Technical Merit:  TIP supports innovative high-risk, high-reward research.
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• Transformational Results:  TIP focuses on ideas with a strong potential for advancing the state-of-the-art and contributing to the U.S. science and technology knowledge base.
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• Rich Teaming:  TIP funds small and medium sized businesses, institutions of higher education, national labs, nonprofit research institutions and other organizations.
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• Clear Government Need: TIP funds projects that justify government attention because the magnitude of the problem is large and no other sources of funding are reasonably available.
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• Funding:  TIP may fund single company projects up to $3M over a maximum of three years or Joint Venture projects up to $9M over a maximum of five years.
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• Cost share:  TIP awardees share at least 50% of the yearly total project costs – direct plus indirect. TIP funds direct project costs only.

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