American Association For The Advancement Of Science

American Association For The Advancement Of Science, doing business as Aaas, is a non-profit tax-exempt scientific organization based in Washington, DC, that administers the Science & Technology Policy Fellowships (STPF) program and provides scientific publications, subscription access, and policy advisory services to federal agencies as a prime contractor on all awards, with no subcontractor footprint across its portfolio. The organization operates 100% as a prime contractor—all 1,113 recent awards are direct prime awards—and competes exclusively in full-and-open, non-set-aside categories across civilian federal agencies.

Aaas's core federal capability centers on fellowship program administration and scientific workforce placement. The organization recruits, selects, places, and professionally develops scientists and engineers for one-year assignments across federal policy offices, embedding technical experts within civilian agencies to inform evidence-based policymaking. Representative contracts include a $368 thousand purchase order from NIH's Office of the Director for continued AAAS Fellows Program recruitment, selection, placement, and professional development (awarded September 1, 2026); a $296 thousand definitive contract from USDA for electronic access renewal to four AAAS science publications—Science Online, Science Classic, Science Translational Medicine, and Science Immunology—for all USDA users through August 2031 (awarded August 7, 2026); and a $485 thousand purchase order from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Program supporting the Division of Scientific Authority (awarded July 27, 2023). Beyond fellowships, Aaas sells journal and ePublications subscriptions, maintains the EurekAlert! science news distribution service, provides news portal management and traffic reporting, and collects federal research and development budget statistics through the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

Customer concentration sits heavily with the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation by dollar value, though measured by award count the distribution is broader. The top five customer agencies by potential value account for 61% of combined potential value: NIH Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations (22 awards, $30.5 million), NIH Office of the Director (22 awards, $20.2 million), the State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (32 awards, $19.8 million), NASA Shared Services Center (27 awards, $3.5 million), and the Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service Region 9 (17 awards, $2.4 million). NSF leads by award count (69 awards) despite a low combined potential value of $118 thousand, reflecting small individual grant amounts. State Department bureaus and sub-offices collectively represent a substantial recurring base across the fellowship delivery model—26 distinct State bureaus and offices appear in the source data, each receiving fellows and administrative support delivery orders.

Aaas holds three significant parent indefinite-delivery contracts: a single-award IDIQ with NIH's Professional & Organizational Development Office at ARPA-H with a $610,824.84 ceiling running through August 31, 2028 (supporting fellowship management fees and new fellow placements); a single-award IDIQ with the Federal Highway Administration for Science & Technology Policy Fellowships with a $3 million ceiling through December 21, 2027 (with a $841,531 delivery order issued August 17, 2023, for fellowship recruitment, selection, placement, and professional development); and a single-award indefinite-delivery contract with the State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs with a $6.6 million ceiling and an ultimate completion date of February 18, 2027 (supporting fellowship placement across federal agencies). The source identifies an additional State Department vehicle valued at $6.5 million (through May 2025) supporting fellowship administration and placement. Beyond IDIQs, Aaas places hundreds of task orders and delivery orders across federal agencies, with 162 task orders under one identified IDIQ vehicle (19AQMM20D0063) carrying $5.1 million combined potential value.

Activity levels show decline from recent peaks: 2022 recorded 48 awards, 2023 peaked at 66, 2024 dropped to 60, 2025 fell to 11, and 2026 records only 6 awards (source reflects year-to-date activity as of early October 2026). Twenty-six awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $13.1 million, representing recompete exposure. Across all 1,113 awards in the source, combined obligated dollars ($323.4 million) exceed combined potential value ($125.6 million) by 157 percentage points, indicating substantial prior obligational activity and invoicing on ceiling-type awards.

SCI-reported service contract invoicing across FY2022–FY2025 totaled $7.4 million (prime records only), spanning 4 to 8.1 FTEs per year. In FY2024, Aaas invoiced $2.1 million across 3.2 FTEs; in FY2025 (year-to-date), invoicing stood at $1.3 million across 0.8 FTEs. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts ranged from a 10th percentile of $87.93 per hour to a median of $152.22 per hour, with senior labor pricing reaching $1,151.33 per hour at the 90th percentile. The vendor self-performed all reportable hours with zero subcontractor engagement across SCI records. These figures represent only federal service contracts above the $150,000 threshold and exclude fellowship fees, publications sales, and grant work, which together constitute the bulk of Aaas's federal portfolio.

Grant activity is substantial but distinct from service contracts. Aaas has received cooperative agreements and project grants from NSF supporting STEM teacher preparation, EPSCOR coordination, ERN Conference evaluation, and HBCU innovation ecosystems, as well as STPF placement grants from NSF, NASA, NIJ, and other agencies. A recent $4.1 million three-year grant from NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education (effective October 1, 2025) funds expansion of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program through annual summits, workshops, a digital resource platform, and mixed-methods evaluation. A $2.74 million three-year NSF Integrative Activities grant (July 1, 2025) supports AAAS leadership of an EPSCOR Hub serving 28 NSF EPSCOR jurisdictions with national summits, electronic knowledge-sharing infrastructure, and best-practice dissemination.

Aaas operates a single named subsidiary, Aaas Fellowship Programs, Inc., a for-profit entity that likely channels specific fellowship administration or commercial revenue activities, though the source does not articulate the subsidiary's distinct operational role relative to the parent. The corporate structure file notes the subsidiary exists but provides no details on its federal award footprint or teaming relationships.