Kansas State University

Kansas State University, operating as Pre-Awards Services, is a public 1862 land-grant research institution based in Manhattan, Kansas, that acts as a federal grant and contract recipient across agricultural research, veterinary diagnostics, natural resource management, STEM education, and applied science. The university competes across full-and-open opportunities in grant funding (NSF, USDA, NIH, DOE, EPA, NOAA) and federal service contracts without SBA set-aside designation, holding 92% of recent awards as prime recipient or contractor and 8% as subcontractor.

Pre-Awards Services delivers concrete capability in three primary domains. First, specialized animal health laboratory diagnostics—particularly through its parent university's Biosecurity Research Institute and College of Veterinary Medicine—including rabies serology (RFFIT testing), highly pathogenic avian influenza diagnostics, African and classical swine fever testing, foreign animal disease detection, and antimicrobial resistance analysis, all performed under the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) infrastructure. Representative contracts include a $100,000 USDA APHIS Veterinary Services indefinite delivery contract (established December 2021, ceiling through November 2026) that funds delivery orders for scrapie testing ($10,050), HPAI cattle emerging event testing ($50,000), and foreign animal disease testing ($6,000), among others issued in 2026 alone. Second, agricultural research and innovation spanning crop genetics improvement, food security, sustainable production systems, and pest management—supported by roughly $207.5 million in combined potential value across 3,166 recent awards. Representative grants include a $650,000 NSF project on African swine fever vaccine development with companion diagnostics (February 2026 through January 2029), a $299,980 USDA NIFA project on corn fiber gum emulsifier technology (August 2026 through July 2029), and a $1.0 million NSF Biological Sciences award on lipid sensors in plant gene expression (June 2026 through May 2029). Third, workforce development, extension education, and community resilience programming through K-State Research and Extension, including pollution prevention technical assistance (EPA-funded), wildfire preparedness and training, nutrition education (EFNEP), agricultural safety training, and youth engagement programs.

Customer concentration is diffuse across federal research agencies. The top five funding agencies account for approximately 44% of recent awards: the Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture leads with 501 awards across research priorities; the National Science Foundation follows with 406 awards across disciplines (NSF CAREER awards, REU programs, engineering education initiatives); the USDA Agricultural Research Service issued 147 awards; the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued 116 awards ($31 thousand combined potential value); and the USDA combined agencies account for roughly 60% of award volume. APHIS Veterinary Services in particular anchors the diagnostic laboratory footprint with 55 awards carrying $21 million in combined potential value. Department of Defense, NIH, and Department of Energy round out the secondary customer set. Recent activity shows decline from 211 awards in 2024 to 145 in 2025 and 60 through mid-2026 in the source data window, reflecting the lag in new grant awards reporting and the typical annual variation in research funding cycles at large research institutions.

The prime vehicle footprint centers on indefinite delivery contracts with APHIS Veterinary Services (IDIQ 12639521D0074 with 47 task orders and $1.2 million combined value for laboratory diagnostic services), a single-award USDA APHIS BPA for testing services, and grant vehicles (NSF CAREER awards, USDA AFRI competitive grants, DOE Office of Science awards). The university does not appear to hold major GWACs or enterprise-wide schedule positions; its contracting is driven by federal grant mechanisms and dedicated agency IDIQs for specialized service delivery.

Teaming shows the university predominantly primes research awards (92% of footprint) and builds delivery consortia through sub-awards to peer institutions rather than relying on subcontractor networks. Service Contract Inventory data covering contracts above $150,000 shows $5.3 million in invoiced revenue across 14 prime records (FY2022–FY2024), with workforce scale declining from 8.1 FTEs in FY2022 to 2.1 FTEs in FY2024; median government-paid rates run $217.24/hr, with a 90th percentile reaching $651.51/hr, indicating senior researcher and faculty compensation mixed with technician labor. Sub-engagement on prime contracts shows minimal subcontractor hours, with work performed primarily by university personnel. When the university acts as a sub-awardee, it typically partners with peer research universities (Cornell, Texas A&M, University of Nebraska, University of Kansas, Louisiana State) on large USDA and NSF collaborative research initiatives, contributing specialized lab services, field research, or thematic research components.

Federal grant footprint is substantial and diversified. Representative recent awards include recipients (not subcontractors): a $2.0 million cooperative agreement with USDA APHIS for live-attenuated H5N1 poultry vaccine development (February 2026 through February 2029); a $1.999 million cooperative agreement with USDA APHIS for edible insect larvae-based HPAI vaccine platform development with sub-awardee North Carolina State University (February 2026 through February 2029); a $1.0 million NSF Biological Sciences project on lipid sensors in plant gene expression networks (June 2026 through May 2029); a $2.0 million DOE Office of Science award for boron-carbon-nitrogen metastable materials synthesis with sub-awards to Oklahoma State and University of Nebraska (August 2025 through August 2027); a $1.65 million DOE Office of Science project on high-throughput bioenergy crop genome editing (September 2025 through August 2026); an $8.0 million Cooperative Agreement from the Department of State for the Cereals Lab (June 2026 through June 2028) supporting crop adaptation research; a $12.01 million Smith-Lever formula grant (October 2025 through September 2030) for cooperative extension programming in food systems, water resources, and health; and a $6.92 million Hatch Act formula grant for agricultural research (October 2025 through September 2027). The university also receives formula grants from EPA, NSF, USDA, and other agencies supporting baseline research and extension capacity.

The university's Pre-Awards Services division serves as administrative hub for federal grants and contracts management, and the parent Kansas State University entity carries additional federal research infrastructure including the Biosecurity Research Institute (BSL-3 facility for animal pathogens), veterinary diagnostic laboratories in Manhattan and Ames, Iowa, and extensive county-based extension centers across Kansas. Recompete exposure in the next 24 months is moderate: 180 awards with completion dates in that window carry $2.1 million in combined potential value—a fraction of the total portfolio, but significant for budgeting purposes as awards completing between June 2026 and June 2028 will require renewal submission cycles beginning immediately through mid-2027.