Marshall University Research Corporation

Marshall University Research Corporation, a tax-exempt non-profit research organization affiliated with Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, operates as a prime recipient for federal grants across diverse scientific, technical, educational, and workforce development domains, with 74% of recent awards as prime and 26% as sub-awards. MURC competes without set-aside designations and serves as a federal research partner to civilian and defense agencies across the life sciences, engineering, environmental science, and behavioral health sectors.

MURC's customer base spans 118 federal agencies, with concentration in the top five: the Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration leads by award count at 41 awards, followed by the Army Corps of Engineers Engineering District Huntington (38 awards), the National Science Foundation (35 awards), the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education (32 awards), and the Appalachian Regional Commission (28 awards). By potential value, however, the Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center anchors MURC's portfolio at 10 awards worth $16.6 million combined, with the Engineering District Huntington contributing $4.2 million across 38 awards. This divergence reflects MURC's role as both a large-volume subrecipient on state-level behavioral health and education grants and a prime research contractor on higher-dollar ERDC and Marine Corps environmental and scientific work.

On the contract side, MURC holds two primary indefinite delivery vehicles: a $443,688 single-award IDC with the Veterans Integrated Service Network 5 for animal per diem services supporting biomedical research (9 delivery orders issued through October 2025, totaling approximately $278,734), and a $2.05 million multiple-award OTA with the Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center for research, technical assistance, and specialized services. Representative prime contract work includes a $2.99 million firm fixed-price definitive contract with ERDC (through September 2027) for detection of subterranean threat activity in hard rock environments under BAA 23-0030; a $1.5 million contract (through August 2028) for physics-based investigation of wave propagation in elastic media for seismic analysis and tomography; and a $224,000 Marine Corps purchase order (through June 2025) for Southern fox squirrel research in Beaufort, South Carolina. Animal per diem delivery orders under the VA IDC have ranged from $2,155.79 to $97,089 with cost-no-fee and firm fixed-price structures.

MURC's grant footprint is expansive, with 445 prime awards spanning NIH institutes (NIDA, NCCR, NIAID, NIGMS, NIDCR), the National Science Foundation (including REU sites, CAREER awards, and RII Track 4 fellowship awards), the Department of Education (FIPSE, TRIO), the Department of Energy (Clean Cities cooperative agreements), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (cooperative agreements for miner training), and regional sources (Appalachian Regional Commission, West Virginia state agencies). Recent grant examples include a $299,519 SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment award (through September 2029) for training graduate health professionals in substance use disorder services in rural West Virginia; a $568,797 NSF Division of Chemistry award (through July 2029) for design-flexible, renewable, and recyclable catalysts through chirality-directed self-assembly; a $400,000 NSF Integrative Activities CAREER award (through March 2030) on telomere biology and plant reproductive fitness; a $398,638 NSF STEM Education award (through September 2028) for advancing undergraduate STEM instruction through faculty professional development and evidence-based pedagogies; and a $1,499,903 Department of Education FIPSE award (through August 2027) continuing the WV Cyber Security Center for Critical Infrastructure. MURC also receives sub-awards from state agencies (West Virginia Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Resources, Department of Human Services), regional universities, and major research institutions; 155 sub-awards in the source data show MURC delivering work under primes including the Medical College of Wisconsin, Yale University, University of Missouri System, and West Virginia University Research Corporation on topics ranging from behavioral health programs to COVID wastewater monitoring to biomedical research.

SCI-reportable invoiced revenue on federal service contracts ran $1.8 million in FY2022 and $3.7 million in FY2023, supporting roughly 1.1 FTEs in each year; those figures represent a strict subset of MURC's federal revenue and exclude goods, grants, and non-federal sources. Across SCI prime records, median government-paid rates ran around $436.81 per hour, with the 90th percentile at $733.62 per hour, indicating a mix of senior professional and technical labor. Average sub-hours share across SCI prime contracts reached 43%, reflecting MURC's pattern of engaging subcontractors for specialized work while maintaining core delivery capacity.

Activity has remained robust, with 45 awards in 2023 growing to 77 in 2024, then sustaining at 71 in 2025. Forty awards (combined potential value $8.2 million) reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, presenting recompete exposure. MURC's award portfolio spans environmental consulting, research and development in physical and life sciences, veterinary and animal care services, water transportation support, and space science applications, anchored by a non-profit educational institution's research infrastructure and faculty expertise in biomedical research, environmental science, occupational safety and health, and STEM workforce development across the Appalachian region.