Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Inc.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Inc., through its Office of Sponsored Research Administration, operates as a prime recipient and contractor on federal research grants and educational service delivery contracts across NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and civilian agencies, competing on full-and-open basis without set-aside designations. The university is a private, non-profit tax-exempt educational institution headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida, with a 994-award portfolio spanning contracts, grants, and sub-awards valued at $875.3 million in combined potential value across 85 distinct federal agencies.

Embry-Riddle's federal work divides into two principal capability streams: educational service delivery to military officer training programs (predominantly NROTC midshipmen tuition and naval officer development) and fundamental research in aerospace engineering, space science, atmospheric dynamics, and advanced manufacturing. Educational service contracts—particularly with the Navy's Bureau of Naval Personnel and Chief of Naval Personnel—account for substantial volume, with multiple delivery orders each semester for NROTC tuition, allowable fees, and engineering fundamentals training. Representative educational awards include a $2.49 million Fall 2025-2026 NROTC tuition delivery order (Navy Bureau of Naval Personnel, October 2025), a $2.99 million Engineering Fundamentals Option delivery order (Navy Naval Education and Training Command, May 2024), and a $1.25 million small uncrewed aerial systems survey and analysis task order under the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence vehicle (Navy Southwestern Region, September 2024). The research portfolio emphasizes space science, ionosphere-thermosphere coupling, astrophysics, gravitational wave detector characterization, and advanced materials. Significant research grants include a $6.7 million NASA University Leadership Initiative cooperative agreement for safety-aware learning and assured autonomy in aviation applications (through July 2029), a $1.575 million Office of Naval Research MURI award for ionosphere-thermosphere impacts of gravity waves (through November 2030), a $1.321 million NASA Langmuir probe development grant for low-Earth-orbit spatial structure detection (through April 2027), a $1.505 million NASA mesoscale auroral ionosphere-thermosphere coupling grant (through October 2026), and numerous NSF-funded projects spanning 35 active space science and engineering research initiatives.

Customer concentration skews toward the Department of the Navy ($161.5 million combined potential value across 14 awards, anchored by a multi-year NROTC tuition stream) and Naval Education and Training Command ($37.3 million across 54 awards). NASA's Shared Services Center ranks third by award count (146 awards, $29 million potential value) but much of this reflects modular research funding at lower per-award magnitudes. The Department of the Army (79 awards, $29 million), Department of the Air Force (71 awards, $2.1 million), and FAA (57 awards) round out the top federal customers. SCI-reportable service contract activity shows minimal invoiced revenue in available data (FY2022–FY2025), with approximately 0.6 FTEs delivered on federal service contracts captured by the reporting threshold, indicating that SCI covers only a small portion of the university's federal work; the vast majority of Embry-Riddle's federal footprint comprises educational grants, research grants, and tuition-based educational contracts not captured in SCI metrics. The university competes as a prime contractor in 93% of awards and operates without SBA set-aside designations, reflecting its status as a full-and-open competitive bidder. Teaming is sparse: Embry-Riddle subcontracts to Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, and other defense contractors on specialized projects but primarily delivers research and education services through its own faculty and staff. Recent sub-award activity includes roles as a sub-recipient on a Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory Atmospheric Waves Experiment study, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory operational management sub (January 2026), and a Booz Allen Hamilton task for FAA aeronautics research gap analysis (October 2025). Grant sub-awards position the university as a research partner under prime recipients at the University of Colorado, the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, and academic consortia on climate, ionospheric, and materials-science initiatives. Activity has moderated in the past two years (43 awards in 2025, 33 in 2026 year-to-date) from peak volume in 2023–2024 (73 awards each year), and 63 awards face recompete within the next 24 months ($10.1 million combined potential value), driven primarily by Navy educational service contract renewals and annual NASA science grant cycles.