Office of Extramural Research Education and Priority Populations

The Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the civilian federal agency charged with funding research to improve healthcare quality, safety, and outcomes. AHRQ operates as a sub-agency within HHS and allocates its grant funding directly to academic medical centers, research institutions, and healthcare organizations pursuing applied and translational health services research.

AHRQ has obligated $477.7 million in federal grant funding across 413 awards since 1989, distributed to 125 distinct recipients. Recent activity shows sustained grant-making at 27 awards in 2021, 49 in 2022, 54 in 2023, 48 in 2024, and 1 award so far in 2025, with the most recent award dated March 15, 2025. Grant funding is predominantly Project Grants (406 awards, 98% of portfolio), with a small share of Cooperative Agreements (7 awards, 2%).

Grant recipient concentration is highly fragmented. Over the last five years, the top five recipients by award count — University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (7 awards, $1.5 million), The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (6 awards, $7.4 million), Regents of the University of Michigan (5 awards, $9.6 million), The Regents of the University of Colorado (5 awards, $2.8 million), and The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco (5 awards, $9.1 million) — account for only 18 percent of recent awards. By federal dollars obligated, the same top five recipients hold only 8 percent of the pool, with funding weighted toward University of Michigan ($9.6 million), UC San Francisco ($9.1 million), and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia ($7.4 million). The long tail of recipients is substantial, reflecting AHRQ's distributed funding model across academic and healthcare institutions nationally.

No recent federal grant opportunities are recorded in the source material. Business development professionals evaluating AHRQ should monitor the agency's Notices of Funding Opportunity directly through Grants.gov or AHRQ's website for announcements of new research priorities, as the portfolio reflects a mature, broad-based grant program with recurring annual solicitations rather than episodic procurement events.