Georgia State University Research Foundation Inc.

Georgia State University Research Foundation Inc., the research arm of Georgia State University headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is a nonprofit research recipient and prime contractor delivering federal research and education services across science, technology, engineering, healthcare, education, criminal justice, and social services. The foundation operates as a prime recipient on competitive federal research grants (82% of recent awards) and as a sub-recipient on collaborative research initiatives, competing under full-and-open procedures with no SBA set-asides.

The foundation's capability portfolio centers on basic and applied research spanning heliophysics and space weather forecasting, behavioral and biomedical science, STEM education, epidemiology and public health, neuroimaging and computational neuroscience, and materials science. Recent prime grant work includes a $930,674 award from NASA to develop physics-based coronal mass ejection modeling and machine learning for solar wind magnetic field prediction through June 2028; a $802,008 award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to investigate hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis interactions with weight-loss therapeutics through February 2031; a $795,962 award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on nutrient acquisition and glycan interactions in drug-resistant gonorrhea through August 2030; and a $3.5 million National Science Foundation award to operate the CHARA Array, the nation's premier optical interferometry facility for high-angular-resolution astronomy, through August 2027. The foundation also holds a GSA Federal Supply Schedule contract with a $70.6 million ceiling through October 2030, offering 19 labor categories ranging from graduate research assistants at $26.04 per hour to center directors at $274.58 per hour, spanning research coordinators, administrative specialists, and educational technology roles with no security-clearance requirements.

Federal customer concentration is diffuse across 161 agencies. The National Science Foundation leads by award count (279 awards), followed by the National Institutes of Health and its component institutes—NIAID (79 awards), and various NIH institutes (86 awards combined). NASA's Shared Services Center accounts for 64 awards and $6.2 million in combined potential value, anchoring the foundation's space science portfolio. The Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education funds 52 awards, primarily TRIO Student Support Services programs and workforce development initiatives. Recent activity shows growth through 2024 (171 awards) followed by contraction in 2025 (117 awards) and minimal 2026–2027 activity (67 awards), reflecting the timing of federal fiscal-year grant cycles and the foundation's substantial FY2025 and FY2026 award portfolio reaching completion phases.

SCI-reported invoicing across service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $20 million from FY2022 through FY2025, with FY2022 peak at $6.1 million. The foundation deployed roughly 34 FTEs in FY2022, declining to 4.4 FTEs in FY2023 and stabilizing around 24.8 FTEs in FY2024 and 4.4 FTEs in FY2025. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime service contracts ranged from a 10th percentile of $66.72 per hour through a median of $109.88 per hour to a 90th percentile of $459.01 per hour. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed approximately 22% of total contractor hours, with 35 named subcontractors recorded, indicating the foundation builds mixed delivery teams rather than operating as a pure prime or sub vehicle.

The foundation executes research under the HRSA Technical Assistance vehicle (9 task orders, $29.4 million combined potential value) and the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (8 task orders, $26.1 million), enabling federal agencies to place orders without new competition. The award portfolio faces modest recompete exposure: 111 awards (combined potential value $3.3 million) complete within the next twenty-four months, representing routine research-grant cycle completion rather than acute cliff risk. The foundation's sub-recipient posture spans collaborative research with major universities—Emory University, University of Wisconsin System, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and others—as well as service sub-awards to regional colleges and community organizations, positioning it as both a substantive research partner and an operational delivery vehicle within larger federally funded research consortia.