National Strategic Research Institute

National Strategic Research Institute, a non-profit research organization affiliated with the University of Nebraska System and headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, operates as a prime contractor on federal defense and national security research awards, delivering strategic analysis, nuclear deterrence studies, chemical and biological defense research, and installation security programs to the Department of Defense and related agencies without set-aside designations.

NSRI competes entirely on full-and-open federal contracts and IDIQs, concentrated heavily with Air Force Air Combat Command. The institute's customer base reflects overwhelming concentration in Air Force work: Air Combat Command alone funds 76 awards carrying $822.6 million in combined potential value, representing 77% of all recent awards and 94% of combined potential value across the top five customer agencies by dollar magnitude. Defense Threat Reduction Agency contributes 14 awards worth $101.7 million, followed by the Defense Health Agency ($30.5 million across 3 awards), the National Nuclear Security Administration ($28.7 million across 3 awards), and the Army's Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense ($15.2 million across 4 awards). The top-by-count and top-by-dollars rankings align tightly on Air Force dominance, with DTRA as the secondary major customer in both.

NSRI holds two principal IDIQs issued by Air Force Air Combat Command: a $92 million single-award vehicle (FA460012D9000, 2012–2021; FA460018D9001, 2018–2026; and FA460020D0003, 2020–2025) that has generated the vast majority of recent task orders, and a newer $499.3 million single-award IDIQ awarded February 13, 2026, running through February 12, 2031. The institute also holds a $25 million single-award IDIQ with the National Nuclear Security Administration (awarded October 1, 2021, running through September 30, 2026) for nuclear stockpile stewardship workshops. Recent delivery orders exemplify NSRI's capability portfolio: a $174,506 delivery order from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (September 2025) for signal disambiguation from low-yield nuclear attacks; an $800,000 delivery order from Air Combat Command (September 2025) for passive vehicle barrier wall design at Bellevue, Nebraska; a $7.06 million Air Mobility Command order (September 2024) for chemical defense technology research; a $9.99 million Defense Threat Reduction Agency order (August 2024) for weapons-of-mass-destruction diagnostics and detection under the Combatting WMD (Increment 2) vehicle; and a $24.5 million Defense Health Agency delivery order (September 2023) for medical countermeasure drug discovery and development through August 31, 2028.

NSRI's award activity has been volatile, declining from six awards in 2022 to nine in 2023, then dropping to seven in 2024 and four in 2025. Eight awards (combined potential value $30.8 million) reach completion within the next twenty-four months and face recompete exposure. The institute's combined potential value across all 140 awards (137 prime, 3 sub) is $1.06 billion, with $154.5 million obligated to date, reflecting the long-term research nature of many awards and the multiple-year task-order pipeline.

NSRI's work centers on NAICS 541512 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences except Biotechnology), with 98% of its footprint as prime contractor. Service Contract Inventory data for FY2022–FY2024 capture only $2.1 million in invoiced SCI-reportable service contract revenue—a strict subset of NSRI's federal services activity. That narrow slice shows 0.2 to 1.5 FTEs across fiscal years and government-paid hourly rates ranging from a 10th percentile of $337.82/hr to a 90th percentile of $604.94/hr, with a median around $558.40/hr. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, NSRI performed zero percent of hours through subcontractors, indicating direct delivery of labor on those specific records.

On subcontract work, NSRI delivers research support under primes including Mriglobal (Information Analysis Center chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense research under a Defense Department task order, August 2025) and the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska on DARPA Personalized Protective Biosystem independent verification and validation work (April 2023 and October 2024). The institute's major named subcontractors across prime delivery include Southwest Research Institute, Battelle Memorial Institute, Sierra Nevada Corporation, the University of Nebraska Office of Sponsored Programs, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.

NSRI is a subsidiary of the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska, a state-controlled land-grant institution. The institute's federal contract footprint has accumulated over $100 million in prime awards since 2012, positioning it as a specialized national security research vehicle for defense deterrence analysis, weapons-of-mass-destruction research, and strategic planning support to Air Force and allied defense agencies.