Florida State University

Florida State University's Sponsored Research Administration Division, a non-profit educational institution headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, operates as a prime recipient of federal research grants and contracts across civilian science agencies with no SBA set-aside designations, competing on full-and-open merit-based selection. The university serves as prime on the vast majority of its awards (85% of recent activity) and acts as subrecipient on federally funded research programs administered through other institutions.

FSU's federal footprint centers on research and development across civilian life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering disciplines. Recent representative prime awards span the National Science Foundation ($2.97 million FIREWORKS250 civics education program under Education Department), the National Institutes of Health ($2.16 million oxytocin and drug extinction research under NIDA), the Department of Energy ($986 thousand multistate optical switching research), NASA ($741 thousand early animal paleontology project), and the Food and Drug Administration ($2.28 million AI-driven clinical trial modernization). The university also holds a multi-billion-dollar Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract with the Missile Defense Agency under the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program awarded December 2025, though current task order activity remains limited. As a subrecipient, FSU conducts research components under prime awards from peer institutions including the National Academies, Cornell University, Northwestern University, and others across biomedical, environmental, and social science research domains.

Customer concentration reflects FSU's identity as a comprehensive research university. The National Science Foundation leads by award count (648 awards), followed by NASA Shared Services Center (150 awards, $34.7 million combined value), NIH (112 awards), NOAA (89 awards), and the Office of Naval Research (55 awards, $2.8 million). The top five agencies by award count account for 35% of activity. When ranked by potential value, the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences tops the list ($81.5 million across 59 awards), followed by NASA ($34.7 million), reflecting FSU's substantial portfolio in STEM education, space science, and earth science research. The portfolio skews heavily toward research and development across physical sciences, life sciences, and professional scientific and technical services; primary NAICS categories include colleges and universities, research and development in life sciences and engineering, and professional scientific services.

FSU's activity trajectory shows growth from 155 awards in 2022 to a peak of 249 in 2024, with 212 awards in 2025 and 60 captured awards through early December 2026. Combined potential value across all awards totals $408.3 million, though cumulative obligated dollars exceed potential value at $3.55 billion, indicating substantial multi-year funding and carryover across award cycles. The recompete cliff presents 232 awards (combined value $35.3 million) with ultimate completion within the next 24 months, representing significant recompete opportunity for the university and potential for competitors to displace current work.

Service Contract Inventory data covering federal services contracts above the $150,000 threshold shows SCI-reported invoiced amounts of $8.9 million (prime records only) from FY2022 through FY2024, with 14.6 to 37.6 FTEs performing work in earlier years and a spike to 2,617 FTEs in FY2024 reflecting large-scale operational capacity for service delivery. On federal services contracts captured in SCI, government-paid hourly rates run median $109.13/hr, with senior labor pricing through $163.24/hr at the 90th percentile. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors accounted for an average 15% of total contractor hours, with 14 named subcontractors engaged, indicating FSU builds most delivery capability in-house while selectively leveraging specialized subs for discrete technical components.

FSU's subcontract footprint spans prime relationships with federal agencies and collaborative research partnerships with peer institutions. Recent notable sub-awards place the university as a research performer under University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Florida, Emory University, and other research universities managing larger federal awards. The corporate structure includes a subsidiary, The Florida State University Research Foundation, Incorporated, which manages research administration and intellectual property for the university's federal programs.