Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a private research university in Troy, New York, operates as a prime recipient of federal research grants and educational contracts across defense, civilian, and space domains, with no SBA set-aside designations. RPI competes full-and-open and holds a $1 million Other Transaction (OT) Indefinite Delivery Vehicle with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for convergent manufacturing of smart metal structures with embedded sensing capabilities, awarded in January 2024.

RPI's federal footprint spans research, education, and operational support. In concrete capability terms, RPI delivers fundamental and applied research in aerospace technologies, power electronics, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, quantum computing and information science, biomedical engineering, materials science, and computational methods. Representative work includes a $1.12 million three-year award from NASA (Shared Services Center) for compact delay lines for space interferometry (September 2024–August 2027); a $598.7 million neuro-symbolic integration project with probabilistic graphical models from NSF's Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (September 2025–August 2028); and multiple Navy delivery orders for Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen tuition, collectively exceeding $4.2 million in recent quarters (February–March 2026). RPI also received a $362.5 thousand CDC contract for investigating associations between vaccinations and autism prevalence using statistical analysis and de-identified datasets (September 2025–September 2026). The vendor's contract and grant work also extends to space domain awareness, liquid-state batteries, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and biodefense diagnostics.

Customer concentration is broad across defense and civilian agencies. The top five agencies by award count account for 54% of recent awards: the National Science Foundation (600 awards), the Department of the Navy (285 awards, including NROTC tuition orders), the Department of the Army (233 awards), the Department of the Air Force (178 awards), and NASA Shared Services Center (75 awards, $23.2 million combined potential value). By potential value, the Navy's Naval Education and Training Command leads with 32 awards valued at $33.6 million (primarily NROTC tuition), followed by NASA Shared Services Center at $23.2 million. NSF dominates by volume but carries smaller average award size, reflecting its emphasis on investigator-initiated research grants. RPI's NROTC tuition contracts are recurring firm fixed-price delivery orders that anchor year-round obligations; 141 distinct customer agencies appear across the source data, indicating broad federal reach.

RPI holds positions on multiple parent vehicles. The Indefinite Delivery Contract F0160079D0485 carries 65 task orders; the Navy's IDC N0014006G0048 carries 37 task orders worth $38.7 million combined; the Navy Basic Ordering Agreement N0018919GZ028 (NROTC tuition) carries 30 task orders at $20.5 million combined; BOA N0061285G0044 carries 22 task orders; and Army IDC DAKF4076A0097 carries 11 task orders. These vehicles represent RPI's primary contracting pathways, with Navy NROTC tuition being the most predictable and recurring revenue stream.

Recent activity shows volatility year-to-year (2022: 56 awards, 2023: 81 awards, 2024: 94 awards, 2025: 76 awards, 2026: 18 awards so far), reflecting the grant-driven nature of RPI's portfolio, where award timing aligns with federal fiscal-year funding cycles rather than a steady pipeline. The 77 awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $5.2 million and represent recompete opportunity, particularly for recurring NROTC tuition orders and research grant competitions. RPI competes at rates spanning $22 thousand to $1.12 million per award, with research grants typically $150 thousand to $800 thousand and tuition orders in the $23 thousand to $1.6 million range per delivery order.

The Service Contract Inventory dataset captures minimal RPI activity (6 total records, FY2022–FY2024, zero prime invoiced revenue), indicating that most RPI awards fall outside SCI reporting thresholds—either because grants and R&D contracts are carved from SCI scope, or because tuition payments and educational delivery services are classified differently. The FTE trajectory across SCI records shows marginal engagement (0 to 2.3 FTEs across six records), consistent with RPI's role as a knowledge institution rather than a labor-intensive service contractor.

RPI operates as a prime recipient on nearly all work (95% of 2,516 awards are prime) and engages subcontractors on selective technical efforts. Recent sub-awards include collaboration with the University of California, San Diego on AI tutor development for quantum computing education (June 2026 sub-award under NSF cybertraining program); Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station on cislunar space object tracking algorithms (September 2025 Air Force sub-award); and MIT on mRNA manufacturing infrastructure (December 2024 sub-award). RPI rarely subcontracts; when it does, the pattern reflects domain-specific technical partnerships rather than a subcontracting footprint. Conversely, RPI serves as a named subcontractor to Fluor Marine Propulsion on Naval Nuclear Laboratory management (August 2025 sub-award for quantum computing applications), CACI Federal on full-spectrum ISR innovation (April 2025), and University of Illinois on influence campaign analytics (April and December 2024).

RPI's primary NAICS categories are Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools (109 awards) and various R&D categories (Research and Development in Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences: 12 awards each). The PSC breakdown reflects this: Education/Training—Tuition/Registration/Membership Fees (212 awards, primarily NROTC), R&D Defense Other—Basic Research (176 awards), R&D Other Research and Development—Basic Research (149 awards), R&D Space—Science/Applications (55 awards), and Applied Research/Exploratory Development (41 awards). RPI's federal strategy centers on research excellence and institutional capacity rather than contract volume; the vendor's mission alignment with Navy education and NSF investigator-initiated grants drives both predictability and competitive advantage.