Small Business Activities in the Division of Behavioral and Social Research

This page provides an overview of small business activities supported in BSR. For additional information about NIA's small business program, please visit NIA's page on Small Business Innovation Research, the SBIR and STTR Omnibus Solicitation (PDF, 1.5M) and the Grants.Gov SBIR information page.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Grants

The SBIR and STTR programs seek to increase the participation of small businesses in Federal R&D and to increase private sector commercialization of technology developed through Federal R&D.

The NIA Division of Behavioral and Social Research is interested in SBIR/STTR applications that include:

1. The development and translation of behavioral economics approaches (incentives or disincentives) to motivate sustainable behavior change to improve health and well-being;
2. The development of robotics applications to aid elderly;
3. The development of cognitive training applications/intervention to improve cognitive function in elderly;
4. The development of blood-spot technology for biological data collection;
5. Social, behavioral, environmental and/or technical interventions on the individual, institutional, family, community, or national level intended to maintain older adult independence or functioning, increase well-being, and prevent disease and/or disability;
6. Genetics and Genome Wide Association Approaches;
7. New sampling and data collection methodologies for use in large population-based household surveys and behavioral interventions of relevance to aging;
8. Survey development/archiving/database support;
9. Developing risk reduction programs (also referred to as health promotion, health management, demand management, and disease prevention programs) among those aged 45-64 within the private sector;
10. Integration of technology, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning for early diagnosis of aging related ailment;
11. Use of technology and innovative statistical methods (e.g., machine learning, development of artificial intelligence algorithms) as appropriate for analysis of “big data” (i.e., time intensive, multisource data) to inform a deeper understanding of mechanisms underlying aging, in both treatment (e.g. early diagnosis of aging related disease such as dementia, and multiple comorbidities in using EHR data) and naturalistic settings (e.g. home assessment using technology to mining and combining big data to predict early diagnosis aging related diseases);
12. Development of new and/or validation of existing sensitive, specific and standardized tests for diagnostic screening of MCI as distinguished from normative age-related change; for example, the development of novel technology and/or methods or the validation of existing measures/methods/technology for the early detection of cognitive impairment and MCI. This includes biosensors and prosthetic devices, technologies, and related software development to aid in the assessment, diagnosis, and remediation of age-related cognitive decline, and;
13. Discovery, development, and/or evaluation of behavioral methods to remediate age-related cognitive decline, and to treat the cognitive impairment and/or behavioral symptoms associated with MCI, as well as to slow and/or reverse the course of cognitive decline or to prevent it entirely.

BSR SBIR/STTR Program Director

Dana Plude, Ph.D.

Program Contacts

For Population and Social Processes applications, contact: Prisca N. Fall, M.A.

For Individual Behavioral Processes applications, contact: Laura Major, MPH