Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research (ONR), a sub-agency of the Department of the Navy, is the Navy's principal research and funding arm for science and technology, awarding both contracts and grants across academia, industry, and government laboratories to advance naval capabilities and defense innovation.

ONR commands a substantial contract portfolio of 70,332 awards totaling $43.99 billion in combined potential value since 1995, with $34.97 billion obligated. Recent contract activity shows 1,499 awards in 2022, 1,632 in 2023, 1,563 in 2024, 1,391 in 2025, and 577 year-to-date in 2026. The competitive landscape is highly fragmented, with the top five primes by award count holding only 8 percent of recent awards. The CNA Corporation leads by count with 192 awards over the last five years, followed by Trace Systems, Inc. with 136 awards, while The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC dominates by potential value with $428.4 million across 80 awards. The Pennsylvania State University holds $247.4 million across 57 awards, and The CNA Corporation commands $212.8 million across its 192 awards. The top five by value account for just 2 percent of combined potential value across the last five years. Contract set-asides are minimal—84 percent of awards carry no set-aside designation, with small business accounting for 14 percent of awards and 8(a) sole source and competitive designations each under 1 percent.

ONR's grant program is comparatively smaller but active, with 8,952 total awards obligating $7.12 billion in federal dollars since 2007. Recent grant activity totaled 927 awards in 2022, 969 in 2023, 872 in 2024, 604 in 2025, and 299 year-to-date in 2026. Grant recipients are moderately concentrated: University of California San Diego leads by count with 107 awards ($128.7 million federal dollars) over the last five years, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology with 86 awards ($66.2 million) and Regents of the University of Michigan with 82 awards ($52.1 million). By federal dollars, UC San Diego again leads, followed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution with 57 awards ($82 million). The top five recipients by count represent 12 percent of recent awards, while by dollars they hold 6 percent of obligated federal funds. Nearly all grants (99 percent) are Project Grants, with Cooperative Agreements representing 1 percent.

Recent contract opportunities from ONR and the Naval Research Laboratory include equipment procurements such as Intel Xeon W-3500 Series workstations (due October 28, 2026), laboratory fume hoods (due October 23, 2026), and storage servers set aside for small business (due October 30, 2026). Most recent postings are Special Notices of Intent to award sole-source purchases under simplified acquisition procedures, including digital signal analyzers, dehumidifier components, service agreements, acoustic modems, and specialized laboratory and research equipment—many with October 2026 close dates indicating imminent awards to named vendors. The Naval Research Laboratory also issued a Total Small Business set-aside for automatic laboratory polisher/grinder equipment (due October 22, 2026).

Grant opportunities currently open include the FY 2027 Department of War Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI), open to U.S. universities with science and engineering degree programs (due April 9, 2027); the ONR Young Investigator Program, limited to early-career tenure-track faculty at higher education institutions or non-profit research organizations (due October 30, 2026); and the FY 2027 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), which funds equipment and instrumentation purchases at accredited U.S. universities to support research education in DoD priority areas (due November 6, 2026).