National Science Board

The National Science Board, a policy advisory body within the National Science Foundation, engages in contract procurement primarily for policy analysis, data management, meeting support, and advisory services. While the Board functions as a governance and advisory entity rather than as the NSF's primary acquisition arm, it transacts contracts to support its governance and policy-development mission.

The Board has awarded 138 federal contracts since 2007, with combined potential value of $204.5 million and $192.1 million obligated (94% of potential value). Recent activity averaged 3.6 awards per year over the last five years—5 awards in 2019, 3 in 2020, 2 in 2021, 3 in 2022, and 5 in 2023. The most recent recorded award closed on 2023-10-01. Across the portfolio history, 71 distinct prime contractors have been awarded.

The competitive landscape among recent primes is highly fragmented. Over the last five years, the top five contractors by award count—Diligent Corporation, Windsor Group LLC, Totally Joined For Achieving Collaborative Techniques (Tjfact) LLC, Mathematica Inc., and Blue TECH Inc.—collectively hold 63 percent of recent awards, each with a single contract. By combined potential value, the top five cover only 8 percent of recent deal value, with Tjfact LLC's $14.2 million contract representing the largest single recent award. The absence of a dominant incumbent reflects the Board's reliance on specialized advisory and analytical vendors on a project-by-project basis rather than umbrella or framework relationships.

Set-aside distribution shows the Board executes predominantly open competitive procurements: 81 percent of awards carry no set-aside designation, while 10 percent are 8(a) sole-source awards. Small business set-asides (including Total Small Business, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, and Woman-Owned Small Business variants) account for 9 percent of awards combined. This profile indicates opportunity for both large incumbents and set-aside-eligible vendors in distinct niches, though the small deal sizes and low frequency of awards constrain growth potential compared to higher-volume federal agencies.