Georgetown University

Georgetown University, a private non-profit research university based in Washington, D.C., serves as a prime recipient of federal grants and contractor on federal service contracts and purchase orders across health research, education and training, and defense-related programs, competing predominantly full-and-open with no set-aside designations.

Georgetown's federal portfolio spans 3,128 awards—2,830 as prime (90%) and 298 as subrecipient or sub-contractor (10%)—with combined potential value of $335.7 million and obligated dollars of $3.6 billion across 226 distinct customer agencies over recent decades. Activity peaked in 2024 at 185 awards and has moderated to 112 in 2025 and 59 in 2026, signaling potential recompete pressure: 143 awards worth $1.4 million complete in the next twenty-four months. The portfolio concentrates in colleges and universities (234 awards by NAICS), health research and development, biotechnology, and professional services—reflecting the university's primary federal market as a research and graduate education enterprise.

Customer concentration reflects health and defense spending. The National Institutes of Health (462 awards, dominated by National Cancer Institute at 168 awards worth $78.2 million) anchors the portfolio, followed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (60 awards, $39.6 million), the National Science Foundation (217 awards), the Department of the Navy (165 awards), and the Department of the Army (154 awards). These five customer groups account for approximately 37 percent of both award count and potential value. The NIH concentration is unsurprising for a major research university with medical and health science programs; however, the dollar-to-award ratio varies sharply—NIH grants tend to be modest individual research projects, while Navy and Army contracts often command higher values per award, indicating differentiated customer demand for training, technical support, and operations work alongside basic science funding.

Georgetown holds a single-award Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract with the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary (IDIQ N6227197G0019 or similar designation), valued at $2.88 million with an ultimate completion date of August 31, 2027, for education, training, and curriculum development services. This vehicle has generated eleven delivery orders worth approximately $2.5 million to date; recent task orders support customized training in Thailand, India, and Washington, D.C., with individual order values ranging from $22,569 to $674,276. The university also holds positions on Navy and Army IDIQs and basic ordering agreements (N6227197G0019 with 43 task orders; F0160079D0449 with 40 task orders; N0024409G0008 with 23 task orders), indicating recurring demand for education, training, and specialized support services across defense agencies.

The university's concrete federal work spans research, education, and training. Representative prime contracts include a $28,900 sole-source purchase order from the Department of Justice for 600 copies of the Georgetown Law Journal Annual Review of Criminal Procedure, 55th edition (a copyright-protected legal analysis serving prosecutors); a $207,715 purchase order from Veterans Integrated Service Network 5 for magnetic resonance imaging data collection supporting neuromodulation research in substance use disorders and chronic pain at the VA Medical Center; delivery orders from the Department of Commerce for customized training programs in economic growth and international affairs; and metabolomic and proteomics analysis services to the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Federal grant work—which dominates dollar volume—includes clinical and translational science training programs (CTSA K12 and T32 programs), National Cancer Institute research on cancer prevention and treatment, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke neuroscience investigations, National Science Foundation fundamental research in chemistry and materials science, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency advanced materials and biomedical programs. Georgetown serves as the lead institution for the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCCTS), a multi-institutional partnership (with Howard University, MedStar Health Research Institute, the Washington DC Veterans Administration Medical Center, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory) that has generated a $3.969 million cooperative agreement from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (CFDA 93.350) running through May 31, 2033, plus separate K12, T32, and postdoctoral training awards totaling over $2 million. The university also manages federal education and public diplomacy programs, including English Language Fellow recruitment and administration for the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs across multiple countries.

Service Contract Inventory data reflects limited SCI-reportable service contract activity: $1.3 million in invoiced revenue across prime records from FY2023–FY2024 (FY2023: $664 thousand; FY2024: $674 thousand), with minimal FTE engagement (0–3.2 FTEs per fiscal year). Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable primes range from approximately $1,100/hr (10th percentile) to $8,700/hr (90th percentile), with a median around $4,900/hr, typical for specialized academic and research professional services. Georgetown performs 100 percent of contracted hours in-house on these SCI-recorded primes (0 percent subcontractor share), indicating the university builds its own delivery teams for SCI-reportable work rather than relying on subs. However, the broader award portfolio shows Georgetown as a named subcontractor on 13 SCI records across other primes, positioning the university as a research and training partner embedded in larger federal programs.

Teaming relationships on the subcontractor side are sparse in the source but reflect Georgetown's role as a specialized research and training partner. Named sub-award primes include capital and consulting firms (Capital Consulting Corp on next-generation IT services), policy research organizations (Policy Research Associates on infant and early childhood mental health training), and university and medical institution partners across clinical research, health services, and disease-specific studies. These relationships position Georgetown as a subject-matter expert and research site rather than as a traditional subcontractor in the defense contractor ecosystem.

Georgetown competes full-and-open across its federal customer base, with no SBA set-aside activity reported in the source. The university's competitive posture derives from its institutional reputation in health research, graduate education, and specialized professional training rather than from small-business or minority-ownership designations. The concentration of awards in NIH grants and NSF research funding, combined with education and training contracts to DoD and State, reflects federal customer demand for the university's core research and professional development capabilities, not procurement strategy targeting set-asides.