Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Research and development are major factors in the growth and progress of industry and the national economy. However, basic research done by the nation's research institutions--universities and colleges, federal laboratories, and nonprofit research centers--may not translate into marketable technologies. To link the ideas and resources of the research institutions with the commercialization experience of small businesses, Congress authorized the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Pilot Program in 1992 and reauthorized it in fiscal year 1997. The STTR program is scheduled to expire in September 2001. Each of the five participating federal agencies manages its own program, while the Small Business Administration plays a central administrative role, issuing policy directives and annual reports for the program. The program, which requires that small businesses partner with a nonprofit research institution, is closely modeled to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. In preparation for the review and potential reauthorization of the STTR program, this correspondence identifies participating companies' views on (1) the contributions that the companies and the research institutions made to research and development, (2) the results of research and development, and (3) options for the future relationship between …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) plays a critical role in supporting America's military forces worldwide. DLA employs about 28,000 civilian and military workers at about 500 sites in all 50 states and 28 countries; in round numbers, it manages 4 million supply items and processes 30 million annual supply distribution actions. This report reviews DLA's efficiency and effectiveness in managing it is Business Systems Modernization (BSM) acquisition program. Specifically GAO determines (1) whether DLA is using an enterprise architecture to guide and constrain its investment in (BSM) and (2) whether DLA is investing in BSM in an incremental manner. GAO found that DLA does not have an enterprise architecture to guide its investment in BSM. DLA plans call for creating an architecture as a byproduct of BSM's implementation. In addition, GAO found that DLA has not been managing its investment in this program in an incremental manner; that is, DLA has not treated the first of its four planned incremental releases of BSM as a separate investment decision. Instead, DLA has thus far treated the entire BSM program as a single investment decision, according to BSM …