Federal Research

As part of the federal effort to bolster U.S. industries' competitiveness, the Pilot Technology Access Program provides small businesses with access to: (1) computerized databases containing technical and business information that they typically are unaware of, or cannot afford; and (2) experts knowledgeable in a wide range of technical fields. The program is being implemented at several small business development centers, which provide counseling, training, and research assistance to small businesses nationwide. The centers are run by the Small Business Administration. In 1991, six centers in Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were chosen to implement the program. This report discusses the status, implementation, and evaluation of the program. GAO also includes the views of the participating centers' directors on the program's effect on small businesses' productivity and innovation.

GAO found that: (1) while the Small Business Administration (SBA) provides TAPP funding, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) manages and monitors the program; (2) NIST initially assumed a hands-off approach to allow the six small business development centers to tailor their programs to the specific needs of their states, but after the first year advised centers about balancing the amount of market and technical information they provided and analyzing clients and services provided; (3) NIST and SBA decided that centers needed to compete for third-year funding, since two programs were not yet operational and TAPP funding had been reduced; (4) TAPP recompetition caused the centers to be more responsive to NIST requests for information; (5) although the centers created diverse, unique programs, program operations were similar; (6) preliminary information from TAPP clients indicates that they view the program favorably; (7) centers reported that there is little client demand for technical expert searches; (8) centers provided training to counselors and created reference materials to encourage them to market TAPP to clients; and (9) the lack of an evaluation methodology and uniform data on clients and services, program diversity, and the difficulty in linking TAPP services to increased productivity will make it difficult to evaluate TAPP effectiveness.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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