Creighton University

Creighton University, a private Jesuit research institution in Omaha, Nebraska, serves the federal government as a prime recipient on research grants and as a prime contractor providing tuition assistance and educational services to military personnel, without competing under set-aside designations. The university operates 92% of its recent awards as a prime (564 of 614 total awards), with the remainder as a sub-recipient or sub-awardee on federal grants.

Creighton's federal footprint splits sharply between contract and grant work. On the contract side, the university is almost entirely focused on delivering tuition and fees to the Department of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (84 awards, $14.2 million combined potential value) through delivery orders against an Indefinite Delivery Contract (N0018907GZ038, 83 task orders, $15.3 million combined potential value) and several Basic Ordering Agreements. These tuition contracts serve Navy personnel development and professional advancement. A single outlier contract with the Food and Drug Administration for $154.452 thousand funds research into antimicrobial resistance and beta-lactamase enzyme expression. On February 20, 2026, Creighton established a Basic Ordering Agreement with the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery extending through February 19, 2036, with no specified ceiling value.

Grant work dominates Creighton's federal portfolio by dollar volume and research scope. The university receives substantial funding from the National Institutes of Health and its subsidiary institutes—the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and National Institute on Aging—supporting biomedical research in auditory neuroscience, infectious diseases, neuroprotection, and aging. Representative recent grants include a $161.405 thousand NIDCD project award investigating noise-induced hearing loss and the auditory efferent system (July 2026–June 2029); a $159.600 thousand NIAID award on interferon epsilon protection against Trichomonas vaginalis infection (August 2025–July 2027); and a $500.448 thousand National Science Foundation grant on invasive woody plants' impact on freshwater ecosystems in the Iowa Loess Hills (August 2025–July 2028). The Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education has awarded Creighton $1.450 million for virtual reality and engaging technologies in health and education (September 2024–August 2027) and $1.000 million for its Phoenix campus health sciences and medical school program (September 2022–September 2025). The university also receives TRIO Student Support Services funding ($353.092 thousand for September 2025–August 2026) and has active Upward Bound programs. Creighton acts as sub-recipient on collaborative grants with the University of Nebraska, Colorado State University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Washington, and Father Flanagan's Boys' Home, delivering mentorship, histopathology analysis, physical therapy expertise, and specialized laboratory services.

Customer concentration shows the Veterans Integrated Service Network 23 (Department of Veterans Affairs) as the largest dollar driver at $23.7 million across 44 awards, primarily tuition-related contracts with a long-term definitive contract running through June 30, 2028. The Department of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery follows at $14.2 million across 84 awards. However, the breadth of NIH Institute participation—63 awards from the parent NIH entity alone—reveals Creighton's deep embeddedness in federally funded biomedical research across neuroscience, infectious disease, and sensory biology. Award activity has grown from 23 in 2022 to a peak of 38 in 2024, though it moderated to 21 in 2025 and 9 year-to-date in 2026. Twenty-four awards with completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry $379 thousand in combined potential value and face recompete.

Creighton's capability portfolio centers on three distinct areas. First, tuition and educational services delivery to federal agencies, particularly military personnel development through the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and Veterans Affairs. Second, translational and basic research in auditory and vestibular neuroscience, sensory biology, hearing loss therapeutics, and inner ear regeneration—a research cluster anchored by NIDCD and NINDS funding. Third, health sciences and medical education programming, including the Phoenix campus initiative and workforce training programs (community health worker apprenticeships, TRIO student support). The university conducts research using zebrafish lateral-line models, rodent hearing loss models, molecular dynamics simulations, and prion disease pathology analyses, with dedicated histopathology and prion analysis facilities. Place of performance is predominantly Omaha, Nebraska, with some work in Silver Spring, Maryland (FDA research) and dispersed to research collaborators at sub-awardee institutions.