Carnegie Institute

Carnegie Institute, doing business as Carnegie Museums Of Pittsburgh, is a tax-exempt non-profit organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that provides specialized scientific services and museum exhibition support to federal agencies as a prime recipient and prime contractor, with no subcontract footprint. The organization operates as a research and museum entity offering insect identification and pest screening services to the Department of Agriculture, along with humanities and public program grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The vendor's federal footprint is concentrated in two distinct capability streams. The first is agricultural pest detection and identification: Carnegie Institute holds multiple cooperative agreements and task orders with APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) for wood-boring insect identification and plant pest sample screening to support national priority pest survey operations. Representative contract work includes a $139,968 delivery order for wood-boring insect identification services (awarded December 2022 with completion through February 2024), a $126,936 delivery order under an APHIS single-award IDICs valued at $700,000 (awarded April 2022), and a $71,440 purchase order from the Forest Service Research Service Northern Research Station for native insect determination and non-native wood-boring beetle early detection (awarded September 2022, completing September 2027). The second stream consists of museum and humanities grants: Carnegie Museum of Natural History received a $493,865 Project Grant from the NEH under Promotion of the Humanities Public Programs (CFDA 45.164) for the permanent exhibition "Egypt on the Nile" (awarded May 2024, completing April 2028); a $226,455 Collaborative Research grant (CFDA 45.035) for preparation of an edited volume documenting Egyptian funerary boats held jointly by the Carnegie Museum and the Field Museum of Natural History (awarded October 2026, completing September 2029); and a $400,000 Project Grant for "Black Photojournalism," the first comprehensive traveling exhibition documenting Black photojournalists from post–World War II through 1984 (awarded September 2025, completing August 2027). Carnegie Institute also received a $139,297 grant from the National Park Service under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act program (NAGPRA, Assistance Listing 15.922) for consultation and documentation for the Upper Ohio Valley (awarded October 2025, completing September 2027), and a $493,561 Institute of Museum and Library Services grant under Museums for America (CFDA 45.301) for conservation and digitization of the Holland Correspondence Archive at Carnegie Museum of Natural History (awarded September 2023, completing August 2026). A July 2025 purchase order from the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory valued at $75,000 funds hosting and supporting an Energy Zone Exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center through July 2028.

Customer concentration splits between agricultural regulatory agencies and cultural-humanities funders. APHIS PPQ dominates the contract footprint, accounting for 21 awards with $2.7 million in combined potential value. The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities each represent 21 and 14 awards respectively, though dollar magnitudes in the grant stream are typically higher per award. NASA Shared Services Center, the Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy, and broader APHIS components complete the top-five customer set by potential value. The organization competes in full-and-open, non-set-aside categories across both contract and grant procurements.

Recent activity shows modest volume: one award in 2026, four in 2025, five in 2024, two in 2023, and nine in 2022. Four awards with combined potential value of $146 thousand complete within the next twenty-four months, representing minimal recompete exposure. The vendor's primary parent vehicles are an APHIS Blanket Purchase Agreement (13 task orders, $283 thousand) and two USDA indefinite delivery contracts, one valued at $660 thousand and another at $497 thousand. Carnegie Institute operates no subcontracting relationships; all work is performed in-house through its constituent museums and research operations.