Board Of Regents Of Nevada System Of Higher Education

Board of Regents of Nevada System of Higher Education, operating as University of Nevada, Reno's Sponsored Projects Division, is a state-controlled 1862 land-grant research institution that serves as a federal grant recipient across dozens of civilian agencies—the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and NASA—and also holds multiple contract vehicles for federal service delivery, including newborn metabolic screening and specialized medical testing programs. UNR is a child entity of the Nevada System of Higher Education parent; the institution competes in full-and-open procurements and does not hold SBA set-aside designations.

Over the past five years, UNR has administered 166 to 258 awards annually, with 2,777 total awards in the source portfolio spanning 225 distinct federal customer agencies. Eighty-eight percent of awards are prime positions (2,440 awards) and twelve percent are sub-awards (337), reflecting UNR's role as a lead research institution rather than a subcontractor to other primes. The National Science Foundation leads customer concentration by award count (348 awards), followed by the Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (237 awards) and the Department of Interior US Geological Survey (100 awards). By potential dollar value, the Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Service Network 21, NASA, and the Department of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery dominate the portfolio—anchored by specialized medical and newborn screening services contracts carrying values in the millions.

UNR's concrete capability portfolio centers on federal research and education grant administration, scientific research spanning life sciences, physical sciences, earth sciences, engineering, and computer science, and specialized medical laboratory services. Representative grant work includes $1.9 million in NSF funding for edge artificial intelligence research experiences for teachers (REU Site), $2.56 million from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for gastrointestinal hormone research, $1.15 million from the Department of Agriculture for robotic sheep watering and health monitoring systems, and $2.6 million from the Nevada Cooperative Extension to deliver nutrition education and drought resilience programming across seven Nevada counties. On the contract side, UNR holds a single-award Basic Ordering Agreement with the Department of Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (January 2026 through January 2036, $0 ceiling noted) authorizing task orders for newborn metabolic screening, and places delivery orders under an Air Force Air Combat Command BPA valued at $500 thousand through September 2027 for the same services. Recent delivery order work includes $62.8 thousand from the Department of Navy for newborn screening at Nevada Air Force bases and $63.8 thousand for military tuition and fees.

The institutional award portfolio tracks through five named parent contract vehicles: an Indefinite Delivery Contract with the Department of Navy (27 task orders, $800 thousand combined potential value), a Basic Ordering Agreement with the Navy (15 task orders, $859 thousand), and three smaller vehicles under Department of Energy, Air Force, and Department of Veterans Affairs. The recompete cliff presents 182 awards completing in the next twenty-four months with combined potential value of $5.7 million—a material pipeline for new pursuits in the research community.

SCI-reportable federal service contract invoicing totaled $254 thousand in FY2022 across 2.2 FTEs, with no invoicing recorded in FY2023 and 2.0 FTEs in FY2024; this reflects that the vast majority of UNR's federal activity is grant-funded research rather than time-and-materials service contracts above the $150 thousand SCI threshold. On contracts captured in SCI, median government-paid rates averaged $71.39 per hour, with a range from roughly $40 per hour at the tenth percentile to $103 per hour at the ninetieth percentile—typical for academic research support and administrative labor.

UNR subcontracts to multiple research prime institutions including the University of Pennsylvania (behavioral research on sleep physiology), Baylor College of Medicine (parent-child interaction research), Northwestern University (point-of-care technology for HIV and emerging infectious diseases), and the California Institute of Technology (olfactory search behavior research), reflecting its role as a collaborative research partner on multi-institution federal grants. The institution also receives sub-awards from state agencies (Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, Nevada Department of Wildlife, Nevada Department of Agriculture) to execute education, research, and extension programming, typically as an administrative intermediary or research performer within larger federal grant mechanisms. Named prime subcontractors in UNR's portfolio include Mission Support & Test Services LLC (Nevada National Security Site work) and The Probitas Project, Inc. (electrochemical aerosol detection research).