STTR differs from SBIR in three important aspects:
The small business awardee and its partnering institution are required to establish an intellectual property agreement detailing the allocation of intellectual property rights and rights to carry out follow-on research, development or commercialization activities.
STTR requires that the small business perform at least 40% of the R&D and a single partnering research institution perform at least 30% of the R&D.
The STTR program allows the Principal Investigator to be primarily employed by the partnering research institution.