Jacksonville State University

Jacksonville State University, a public Alabama state institution of higher education headquartered in Jacksonville, Alabama, operates as both a prime recipient of federal grants and a subrecipient under state and federal pass-through agreements, with a secondary role as a prime contractor for specialized law enforcement and cybersecurity curriculum development. The university does not compete under SBA set-asides; its federal posture centers on research and educational grants, with recent activity tilted toward pass-through subawards from state entities and other universities rather than direct federal prime awards.

The university's federal footprint divides sharply between direct prime grants and pass-through subawards. Of 547 total federal awards in the source data, 80 (15%) are prime awards and 467 (85%) are subawards flowing through state agencies, other universities, or federal intermediaries. This distribution reflects JSU's operational model: the institution receives direct federal research and educational grants, then serves as a fiscal and operational conduit for state workforce development, emergency management, and forensics training programs. Recent prime grant recipients include the Department of Homeland Security's Secret Service ($5.2 million combined potential value across two definitive contracts awarded September 2024 for curriculum development and malware toolset development, with completion dated September 2029), the National Institute of Standards and Technology ($2.7 million project grant, October 2024 through September 2028, to establish an Additive Manufacturing Training and Innovation Facility in the southeastern United States), and the Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education ($2.61 million project grant, October 2025 through September 2026, for the Center for Leadership and American Principles to deliver American history and civics teacher professional development). Additional recent prime grants span behavioral health workforce training under the Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Health Professionals (July 2025 through June 2029), a $199,534 Community Oriented Policing Services Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act grant from the Department of Justice (October 2025 through September 2027), National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program support (August 2026 through July 2031), and environmental and emergency management research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The top five customer agencies by award count account for 90% of awards: the Federal Emergency Management Agency dominates the volume with 451 awards (reflecting primarily pass-through subawards for state emergency management infrastructure and disaster response), the Department of the Army with 15 awards, the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education with 11 awards, and the National Science Foundation and Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education each with 7 awards. By potential value, the Department of Homeland Security Secret Service leads at $5.2 million across two recent contracts, followed by Army Materiel Command at $893 thousand. FEMA's award count does not translate to commensurate dollar value in this dataset; the agency's share of combined potential value remains below the top customers by dollars, indicating that FEMA subawards are typically smaller pass-through allocations for state-directed facilities and emergency-preparedness projects.

Subaward activity routes primarily through state intermediaries. JSU subcontracts under state workforce and emergency management programs administered by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, and the Alabama State Department of Education. These subawards fund the Center for Applied Forensics' law enforcement training (crime scene investigation, latent print development, blood spatter analysis), emergency shelter and building resilience projects, LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) teacher stipend programs, and the APEX Accelerator of Alabama small-business contracting initiative. The university also participates as a co-investigator subrecipient under University of Virginia NIH-funded research into ceramide-based therapeutics in acute myeloid leukemia and under Georgia Tech NSF-funded cyberinfrastructure and advanced networking projects.

Activity has declined year over year—35 awards in 2022 to 3 in 2026—a trajectory driven by the drop in FEMA pass-through subawards and completion of multi-year federal grants. Only three awards carry ultimate completion dates within the next twenty-four months, creating minimal recompete exposure in that window. The source data show 547 historical awards spanning back to 1981, but the recent five-year trend signals a contraction in JSU's active federal prime and subrecipient footprint. SCI-reported service contract invoicing for FY2025 totaled $529 thousand across 3.1 contract-level FTEs on prime records, covering specialized training and technical services; this figure represents only a narrow slice of JSU's total federal revenue and excludes the institution's grant revenue, pass-through subaward management, and any non-SCI-reportable activities.