Regents Of The University Of Minnesota

Regents of the University of Minnesota, doing business as Office of Sponsored Projects Administration (OSPA), is a 1862 land-grant research institution serving as a prime recipient for federal research grants and a lesser degree as a prime contractor, with recent work spanning biomedical research, basic science, defense applications, and specialized laboratory services across three primary locations in Minneapolis and one in Duluth, Minnesota.

The university operates predominantly as a grant recipient across the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Veterans Affairs, with 10,849 prime awards (88% of the portfolio) comprising grants, indefinite-delivery contracts, and specialized research service agreements. The institution does not compete under small-business set-asides; all recent awards operate under full-and-open competition. Over the past five years, the award footprint has grown unevenly—708 awards in 2023, surging to 936 in 2024, then declining to 712 in 2025 and 434 in 2026—suggesting elevated funding from several NIH initiatives in 2024 followed by normalization or a potential recompete cliff approaching. The institution's customer concentration is diffuse across 318 agencies, with the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health combining for 2,994 awards (24% of total); within NIH, the National Cancer Institute leads by combined potential value at $963.5 million across 372 awards, followed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at $342.5 million across 343 awards. The portfolio carries combined potential value of $2.42 billion against $14.59 billion in actual obligations, reflecting the university's role as custodian of large multi-year research programs where dollars are obligated annually against multi-year award ceilings.

OSPA's capability portfolio centers on federally funded research execution—basic biomedical science, translational research, clinical trial support, and laboratory services—rather than on procuring goods or services from other vendors. Representative work includes a $1.334 million NIH infrastructure grant to upgrade a 700 MHz NMR spectrometer for biomolecular and 19F NMR studies; a $1.194 million NSF collaborative award to lead institutional change integration of computational thinking into undergraduate physics curricula across eleven universities; a $3.585 million National Institute of Nursing Research award examining carework as a social determinant of health using mixed-methods analysis of national datasets; and a $350,000 NSF award for fast optimization methods for transportation network design under user equilibrium. The institution also operates shared research infrastructure—the Continental Scientific Drilling Facility ($1.403 million cooperative agreement to manage drilling, core sampling, and analytical support for worldwide subsurface research projects) and the Minnesota NMR Center (a core facility serving 32–36 research groups annually). Recent prime contracts carry smaller values ($604,632 delivery order for general chemistry laboratory testing from CDC Pittsburgh; $1.964 million task order from National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for SPAN Analysis research) and reflect the institution's willingness to execute contracted research work under definite and indefinite-delivery structures alongside grants.

The institution holds positions on multiple federal parent vehicles. Five named IDIQs (Indefinite Delivery Contracts with Veterans Integrated Service Network 23, the CDC, and others) generated 18, 17, 12, 12, and 12 task orders respectively; the largest vehicle—HHSN275201300023I—has yielded $9.6 million in combined potential value across 18 task orders. The vehicle activity reflects the institution's ability to respond to task-order solicitations from healthcare and research agencies without requirement for full re-competition.

The institution acts as a prime recipient across federal grant portfolios in biomedical science (NIH), engineering and mathematics (NSF), space science (NASA), agricultural research (USDA), defense research (DOD, ONR, DHA), and infrastructure (NSF). It also serves as a subrecipient on collaborative grants led by other research institutions (Johns Hopkins, University of Washington, UT Health San Antonio, Washington University, and others); the source lists 60 named sub-grant awards dating through September 2026, covering topics such as cancer deaminase structural biology, computational methods for active sensing, diversity initiatives in gerontology research, and disease prevention modeling.

SCI-reported federal service contract activity shows the institution invoiced $43.3 million across service contracts above the $150,000 threshold in FY2022–FY2025, declining from $11.8 million in FY2022 to $9.9 million in FY2025. Contractor FTE volume ranged from 50.6 FTEs (FY2023) to 104 FTEs (FY2024), averaging roughly 78 FTEs across the four-year window. Government-paid hourly rates ran a wide spectrum—10th percentile $61.61/hr, median $100.05/hr, 90th percentile $631.08/hr—reflecting mixed labor pools (administrative support, research technicians, specialized scientific staff). The institution reports an average subcontractor-hours share of 2% across prime contracts, with nine named subs appearing in the SCI dataset, indicating the institution primarily builds its own delivery teams rather than relying on systematic subcontracting. This aligns with the institutional posture: OSPA manages research programs internally, using subs only for specialized technical work (sequencing, imaging analysis, remote data collection) where external expertise is cheaper or faster than in-house development.

The next 24 months hold 871 awards (combined potential value $33 million) approaching ultimate completion, representing recompete and renewal opportunity across NIH, NSF, USDA, and Department of Veterans Affairs accounts. The institution's scale, its standing as a 1862 land-grant institution with state-of-the-art research infrastructure and established relationships across federal agencies, and its track record executing multi-million-dollar research portfolios position it as a anchor customer for specialized research services, laboratory testing, and institutional partnerships. The university does not appear in the source as a vendor selling goods or services to federal contractors; it operates as a research performer and grant custodian, not as a supplier to the federal contracting ecosystem.