Bay Area Environmental Research Institute

Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, doing business as Baer Institute, is a non-profit research organization based in Mountain View, California that delivers interdisciplinary scientific research, data analysis, algorithm development, and advanced computational services to federal agencies primarily as a prime recipient on NASA and U.S. Geological Survey grants and cooperative agreements. The institute competes full-and-open with no set-aside designations across its entire prime footprint, reflecting its specialized scientific capabilities that agencies consistently deem uniquely qualified or sole-source.

Baer Institute's customer base is heavily concentrated in NASA. The top five funding agencies account for 86% of awards by count, with NASA's Shared Services Center dominating at 161 awards worth $344.8 million in combined potential value — roughly 87% of the institute's total portfolio of $394.7 million. NASA Ames Research Center (35 awards, $30.4 million), NASA Headquarters (11 awards, $2.4 million), and the U.S. Geological Survey Office of Acquisitions and Grants (20 awards, $3.1 million) round out the principal customers. The USGS relationship centers on global food security and crop analysis work via a single-award IDV contract with a $494,912 ceiling through August 2026. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Agriculture account for smaller award counts but represent secondary revenue streams.

The institute's capability portfolio spans solar physics, planetary science, astrophysics, heliophysics, Earth observation, and remote sensing. Representative work includes a $117 million cooperative agreement with NASA (ARC-CREST, running through September 2028) for advanced scientific research across multiple disciplines; a $3.8 million cooperative agreement for astrobiology research titled "From Molecules to Exoplanets: The Foundations of Astrobiology"; a $3.6 million cooperative agreement on planetary atmospheres, lunar regolith, and minor planet science; a $2.4 million cooperative agreement on Mars global climate modeling; and a $1.55 million research grant for distributed spacecraft with machine-learning-driven wildfire monitoring. USGS task orders under the global food security IDV are valued at $81,080 each for cropland mapping and agricultural monitoring using proprietary machine learning algorithms and cloud computing platforms. The institute also holds three smaller NASA IDIQs (140G0318D0005, 140G0320D0009, 140G0323D0009) with combined ceiling values under $1.5 million, primarily for delivery-order-based Earth observation and food security analysis work.

Activity has remained relatively stable over the past five years, with 18 awards in 2022, 15 in 2023, 17 in 2024, 13 in 2025, and 3 through the current date (2026). The institute faces a recompete cliff of $126.6 million in combined potential value across 22 awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months — a material exposure that includes the ARC-CREST renewal, the astrobiology and planetary science cooperative agreements, and other core NASA-Shared-Services-Center research initiatives. Obligated dollars across the portfolio ($651.8 million) exceed combined potential value, indicating strong draw-down velocity on multi-year cooperative agreements.

Baer Institute operates as a prime on 95% of its awards. Subcontract and sub-recipient exposure is limited: two sub-awards under Lockheed Martin as prime (AIA Phase E Extension and Multi-Slit Solar Explorer Phase A science work), and multiple grant sub-awards as sub-recipient beneath prime grantees including SETI Institute, Hampton University, Colorado State University, University of Alabama in Huntsville, University of Hawaii, and Catholic University of America, where institute researchers contribute as co-investigators to solar physics, heliophysics, and climate research projects. The sub-recipient work is typically collaborative research on NSF and NASA grants rather than subordinate task performance.

The institute's award portfolio is classified primarily under R&D-Space: Science/Applications (Basic Research) PSC (86 awards) and Space R&D Services (37 awards), reflecting its concentration in fundamental space science. NAICS coding aligns with Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (14 awards) and surveying and mapping services (5 awards). No set-aside categories characterize Baer Institute's prime footprint; all work is awarded full-and-open based on technical merit and scientific uniqueness.