Drexel University

Drexel University, a private research institution headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, operates as a prime recipient and prime contractor for federal grants and contracts in biomedical research, STEM education, and educational services, with no SBA set-aside designations. The university competes in full-and-open procurement across civilian and defense agencies, competing on institutional research capacity and academic reputation rather than through disadvantaged-business set-asides.

Drexel's federal footprint is heavily weighted toward research and development grants. The university's prime award portfolio (90% of recent activity) spans basic research in neuroscience, immunology, materials science, and engineering; applied research in vaccine development and therapeutic delivery; federally-supported graduate and undergraduate STEM education; and tuition support for Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen. Representative recent work includes a $1.3 billion National Institute on Aging research award (February 2026) examining extreme indoor prison temperatures and mortality; a $1.2 million Defense Health Agency cooperative agreement (September 2025) for design and development of glutamate transporter activators for drug-resistant epilepsy; and multiple National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education grants funding AI-enabled manufacturing curriculum and enhanced STEM instructor reflection tools. The university also holds a ten-year Basic Ordering Agreement with the Department of the Navy, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (effective September 2025 through April 2035) for NROTC tuition and fees; two prior delivery orders under this BOA totaled $89,345, with cumulative prior orders exceeding $450,000.

Customer concentration is broad but skewed toward federal research agencies. The top five funding sources by award count—the National Science Foundation (530 awards, though with minimal individual value), the Department of the Navy (167 awards), the National Institutes of Health (151 awards), the Department of the Army (138 awards), and NINDS (87 awards)—account for 41% of recent awards. By potential dollar value, the portfolio is driven by NASA Shared Services Center awards ($4.8 million combined value across 62 awards) and Navy-related tuition support. This represents a typical academic research university profile: high volume of modest-dollar competitive research grants from NSF, NIH, and DoD, alongside smaller-dollar educational and training awards.

Drexel's subcontractor footprint is sparse in the prime awards examined; the university primarily operates as an independent prime on grants and contracts rather than as a subcontractor to other institutions. However, across its sub-award portfolio (10% of total activity), Drexel appears as a sub-recipient in collaborative research arrangements. Named sub-award relationships include work as a sub-recipient to Johns Hopkins University on a gene-environment interaction study in autism (August 2026), sub-work for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on mechanical assessment of tissue (August 2026), and collaborative research on chemical warfare agent decontamination materials under Worcester Polytechnic Institute as prime (August 2026). These sub-awards reflect Drexel's role as a specialized research partner contributing specific technical capabilities—neuroimaging analysis, biomechanical testing, nanomaterial synthesis—rather than serving as a feeder contractor to larger primes.

Federal grant activity dominates the portfolio. Grant awards span CFDA programs across NIH institutes (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), the National Science Foundation (Divisions of Undergraduate Education, Physics, Materials Research, Chemical/Bioengineering/Environmental Systems), and other civilian agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Defense Health Agency. Representative grants include a $2 million NSF award for "Dendritic Democracy in Drosophila Connectomes" (September 2025), a $789 thousand National Institute of Nursing Research award examining eviction's impact on preventive and primary care utilization (September 2026), and a $600 thousand NSF CAREER award for small foundation models in multi-robot coordination (August 2026). The university receives both Project Grants (the standard NIH mechanism) and cooperative agreements and Other Transaction Agreements from DoD components.

Service Contract Inventory records covering FY2022–FY2024 show minimal SCI-reportable activity: six records total (four as prime, two as named subcontractor), with $0 invoiced revenue reported in the SCI dataset across prime records. This reflects that Drexel's federal work is dominated by grants and research contracts (which may not hit the $150,000 reporting threshold or may be classified differently) rather than service contracts subject to SCI reporting. The university's federal footprint is research-led, not services-led.

Activity has grown modestly year-over-year, with 121 awards in 2023, 177 in 2024, and 124 in 2025, suggesting sustainable but not accelerating engagement. A recompete cliff of 158 awards valued at $1.7 million combined potential value is scheduled for completion within the next twenty-four months, representing routine turnover of expiring research and educational grants typical of academic research portfolios.

Drexel University's federal market position is that of a mid-size private research university with established NIH, NSF, and DoD basic-research credentials, focused on neuroscience, immunotherapy, materials engineering, and STEM education. The university competes as an independent prime institution on merit-based research funding, serves as a specialized research sub-recipient on collaborative projects, and maintains a small but established presence in federal educational contracting (NROTC tuition support). No subsidiaries or separate corporate entities materially alter this profile in the federal contracting footprint presented.