Purdue University

Purdue University, a 1862 land-grant research institution headquartered in West Lafayette, Indiana, acts as a prime recipient and prime contractor on federal grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements delivering basic and applied research, educational services, diagnostic laboratory testing, and specialized technical support across civilian and defense agencies. The university does not hold SBA set-aside designations and competes predominantly in full-and-open procurements.

Purdue's capability portfolio spans fundamental and applied research in life sciences, physical sciences, engineering, agriculture, materials science, and quantum computing, grounded in recent award activity. Representative examples include an $849,027 NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative grant for investigating plant-insect-microbiome interactions using grafting techniques to improve pest tolerance; a $1.29 million NIH National Institute on Aging award for developing generative AI platforms for peptide drug design targeting Alzheimer's disease; a $2.49 million NSF Geosciences grant to develop digital twin frameworks for wildfire community resilience assessment; a $538,048 Air Force Research Laboratory DURIP award for a custom two-photon microscope with adaptive optics for dendritic spine imaging; and a $393,976 NOAA delivery order for MRCC base and regional services. On the contract side, recent examples include a $200,000 USDA Veterinary Services delivery order for highly pathogenic avian influenza diagnostic testing through the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, a $1.96 million Naval Air Warfare Center delivery order for graduate credit hours and data CLINs with option periods, and a $43,803 USGS purchase order for low-level iodine-129 analyses using accelerator mass spectrometry at Purdue's West Lafayette laboratory facility.

Customer concentration is fragmented across 315 agencies. The top five funding sources by award count—the National Science Foundation (1,832 awards), NASA Shared Services Center (548 awards, $122.7 million), USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (522 awards), HHS National Institutes of Health (221 awards), and Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (260 awards)—account for approximately 35 percent of recent awards. By potential value, the rankings differ slightly: NASA Shared Services Center leads with $122.7 million across 548 awards; DARPA follows with $28.9 million across 95 awards; Air Force Research Laboratory places third with $10.9 million across 124 awards; and Office of Naval Research ranks fourth with $1.5 million across 186 awards. This divergence signals that Purdue secures numerous smaller research grants from NSF while anchoring a smaller number of larger, higher-dollar research initiatives through NASA and DARPA.

Purdue holds a seat on the Missile Defense Agency's Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) IDIQ, a $151 billion multiple-award contract awarded December 29, 2025, with a ten-year performance period through December 28, 2035. The SHIELD vehicle supports R&D, prototyping, systems engineering, weapon design, production, test and evaluation, and modernization across air, missile, space, cyber, and hybrid threat domains. Beyond SHIELD, Purdue places task orders and delivery orders under five primary vehicles: Indefinite Delivery Contract F0160079D0264 (53 task orders, $2.2 million), N0014006G0047 (51 task orders, $26.3 million), Basic Ordering Agreement GS05B17252 (39 task orders, $137 thousand), Indefinite Delivery Contract 12639521D0086 (35 task orders, $2.5 million), and Indefinite Delivery Contract VA251P1059 (33 task orders, $9.5 million). This vehicle portfolio is dominated by research and development ordering vehicles rather than commercial supply or services schedules.

Award activity has grown substantially: from 458 awards in 2022 to a peak of 701 in 2024, before declining to 554 in 2025 and 178 in the first eight months of 2026 (a partial-year measurement). Across the 9,633 total awards in the source data spanning from 1968 to December 2026, the combined obligated amount ($6.88 billion) substantially exceeds the combined potential value ($794.1 million), indicating that older awards in the portfolio have been executed and invoiced at rates exceeding their initial ceilings or that the source captures realized obligations on long-running research programs. A recompete cliff looms: 667 awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $130.4 million, signaling significant renewal and competition opportunity for incumbent and challenger vendors.

Purdue operates as a prime on 91 percent of its recent awards (8,778 prime awards) and as a subcontractor on 9 percent (855 sub awards). Service Contract Inventory data—a strict subset covering federal service contracts above $150,000 and excluding goods, products, classified work, and non-federal revenue—shows 29 total SCI records (17 prime, 12 as named sub). Prime SCI invoicing totaled $5.6 million across FY2022–FY2024, with FY2023 delivering the bulk at $3.3 million across 1,473 contractor-level FTEs, while FY2024 showed a marked decline to $554 thousand across 0.8 FTEs. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI prime contracts ranged from $62.42/hr (10th percentile) to $2,087.87/hr (90th percentile median $116.49/hr), reflecting a mix of student labor, support staff, and senior technical personnel. SCI sub-engagement across prime contracts shows zero average sub-hours share, indicating Purdue builds its own delivery teams rather than systematically subcontracting work on SCI-reportable service contracts.

Purdue subcontracts to multiple primes on research initiatives. Named sub-award relationships include Northwestern University (Centers for Research on Structural Biology of Infectious Diseases support, May 2026), Auburn University (Detection Canine Sciences work, March 2026), and CDM Federal Programs Corporation (SERDP project, November 2025). The sub-award footprint spans biomedical research, applied sciences, and environmental technology development, with Purdue typically providing analytical capabilities, data management, or specialized research support under larger prime-led consortia.

Corporate structure identifies four named subsidiaries: Purdue Research Foundation (non-profit foundation), Purdue University (the primary institution), Purdue Applied Research Institute LLC (non-profit LLC entity), and a duplicate Purdue University listing. These subsidiaries enable flexible contracting, research administration, and intellectual property management across the institution's extensive federal research footprint. The Purdue Research Foundation in particular serves as the administrative intermediary for many grants and contracts, facilitating cost accounting and financial oversight.

Purdue University competes across full-and-open federal procurements with no reliance on set-aside vehicles, positioning it to bid against any vendor class. The institution's 9,633-award portfolio, concentration among research and development agencies (NSF, NASA, DARPA, ONR, Air Force Research Laboratory), and emerging seat on the SHIELD IDIQ indicate competitive strength in defense and space research communities alongside dominant civilian research agency engagement. The 667 awards completing within twenty-four months and the $130.4 million recompete exposure create both vulnerability and opportunity, requiring sustained business development focus across all customer agencies.