Doane University

Doane University, doing business as Doane College, is a private nonprofit liberal arts institution in Crete, Nebraska that receives federal research and education grants as a prime recipient and as a sub-recipient under larger university research consortia. Doane operates across three campuses (Crete, Lincoln, and Omaha) serving approximately 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students, including online learners, and competes predominantly in full-and-open federal grant competitions across education and STEM research programs.

Doane's federal funding portfolio centers on postsecondary education innovation, STEM curriculum development, student support services, and undergraduate research in biology and chemistry. The institution holds a $2,027,724 FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, CFDA 84.116) Project Grant from the Office of Postsecondary Education running through December 2029 for the PIVOT program, which develops an intensive vocational onramp to transition paraprofessionals into teaching. Doane is also recipient of a $340,662 TRIO Student Support Services Project Grant from OPE (CFDA 84.042) for academic advising, tutoring, and financial literacy services for disadvantaged students through August 2026, and a $450,000 Title III Project Grant from OPE for building data infrastructure to improve student outcomes for underrepresented and low-income populations. On the STEM research side, Doane received a $600,000 NSF STEM Education Project Grant (CFDA 47.076) through June 2025 to develop computational thinking skills in biology and chemistry majors, and a $100,000 NSF Engineering Research Initiation grant (CFDA 47.041) running through August 2026 investigating ethical development in engineering undergraduates. Doane also holds a six-year NSF S-STEM scholarship award (starting October 2022, running through September 2028) supporting 30 low-income STEM majors with demonstrated financial need across biology, biochemistry, chemistry, engineering, and environmental sciences.

Customer concentration is split across education and research agencies. The Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education leads by award count with 11 awards; the National Science Foundation accounts for 12 awards; the Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences holds 5 awards; and the National Endowment for the Humanities carries 3 awards. The Department of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery appears as a customer with 9 awards; however, the source indicates a combined potential value of only $12 thousand across that portfolio, suggesting these are nominal-value vehicles or placeholder entries. Doane also received grant awards from the Office on Violence Against Women and the SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services supporting campus safety and student mental health infrastructure.

As a sub-recipient, Doane participates in research consortia anchored by larger state universities. The institution received sub-awards from the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska for the Nebraska Research Network in Functional Genomics (multiple years, 2023–2025) and a forestry infrastructure grant (December 2025); sub-awards from Iowa State University of Science and Technology supporting LSAMP (Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) summer research and bridge programs for underrepresented STEM students (February 2024); and a sub-award from Colorado State University for phylogenomic and metagenomic research involving Doane undergraduate researchers working on data collection and analysis. Doane also received a sub-award from the Department of Education Nebraska for an Educator Pipeline Collaborative project (November 2022). Recent activity shows one award in 2026 and a recompete landscape with only one award facing ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, suggesting mature, multiyear funding streams with low near-term turnover risk.