Saint Louis University

Saint Louis University, a private nonprofit Jesuit research university headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, operates as a prime recipient and prime contractor across federal research, education, and specialized service delivery, competing predominantly in full-and-open federal grants and contracts without set-aside designations. The university holds a broad federal footprint spanning 1,504 total awards (74% prime, 26% sub) with a combined potential value of $1.34 billion and $926.6 million in obligated dollars across 127 distinct customer agencies, concentrated heavily in health research and development.

Saint Louis University's capability portfolio centers on biomedical research, infectious disease modeling, educational delivery, and specialized laboratory services. The institution hosts a $146.3 million single-award indefinite delivery contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (awarded July 2024, running through July 2031) for pre-clinical models of infectious diseases—encompassing small animal models, non-human primate models, animal replacement models, and specialized reagent generation supporting vaccine, therapeutic, and diagnostic development against agents with pandemic potential and antimicrobial-resistant infections. Work is performed at SLU's St. Louis facility. Representative prime awards include a $195,068 sole-source purchase order from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (awarded September 2026) for evaluation and modernization of high-end atomic clocks integrated with GNSS technology to improve positioning and navigation; a $1.87 million cost-no-fee delivery order from NIAID (September 2024) for hamster models supporting human adenovirus research; and a $500,000 NSF grant (January 2026) for the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center Phase I establishing the Center for Accurate Georeferencing of the Environment (CAGE) in partnership with Ohio State University and Purdue University, delivering precompetitive geospatial research in positioning, AI-assisted information extraction, and quality assurance across multiple sectors.

Customer concentration is severe and dollar-weighted toward the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: NIAID anchors 100 awards worth $1.22 billion combined potential value, representing approximately 91% of the institution's dollar footprint. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development ranks second with 43 awards ($56.8 million), followed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (100 awards, $13.4 million). By award count, the top five agencies account for 38% of awards, but NIAID's dollar dominance (97% concentration on top-five customers by potential value) reflects the institution's role as a specialized research center for infectious disease modeling and vaccine development. Recent activity shows a peak of 155 awards in 2024, declining to 81 in 2025 and 44 in 2026 year-to-date, suggesting volatility in grant flow or completion of large multi-year awards.

The Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units vehicle carries the largest sustained task-order load (26 orders, $24.8 million combined value), followed by two unnamed indefinite delivery contracts (24 and 11 task orders respectively) and Basic Ordering Agreement N0060084G6040 (10 task orders). The university does not report positions on government-wide multiple-award contracts (GWACs or federal schedules) that would enable rapid scaling across customer agencies.

Federal grant work dominates the portfolio. SLU holds grant awards from NIAID, the National Science Foundation, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Defense Health Agency. Representative grants include a $1.377 million Trans-NIH award (April 2026) investigating halogen gas toxicity and effects on red blood cells and platelets; a $657,288 NIAID award (August 2026) on encephalitogenic stem-like T cells in multiple sclerosis; a $617,477 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute award (July 2026) on plasmalogen dysregulation in sepsis for prognostication and treatment; a $500,000 EPA Brownfields Job Training grant (July 2025) recruiting and training unemployed and underemployed residents in remediation and GIS technician skills across the St. Louis metropolitan area; and a $500,000 NSF Cooperative Agreement (January 2026) establishing the CAGE center. The university also receives NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program funding and travel grants for doctoral consortia. Faculty and research centers act as sub-recipients on Washington University-led projects in implementation science, cancer control, HIV prevention, and child maltreatment policy research across multiple NIH institutes.

On federal service contracts captured in the Service Contract Inventory, SLU reported $2.2 million in invoiced prime revenue across FY2022–FY2025, with FTE delivery scaling from 1.3 FTEs in FY2022 to 5.9 FTEs in FY2025. SCI-reportable work shows a spike in FY2023 ($1.4 million, 2.6 FTEs), a dip in FY2024 ($156 thousand, 0.9 FTEs), and recovery in FY2025 ($382 thousand, 2.0 FTEs). Median government-paid hourly rates on SCI prime contracts ran around $117.85/hr, with senior labor priced through $367.68/hr (90th percentile) and entry-level work near $74.36/hr (10th percentile). The university performed zero sub-hours on average across prime SCI records, indicating it builds delivery internally rather than through subcontractors on reported federal services. As a sub on federal contracts, SLU appears only in two SCI records, positioning it as primarily a prime contractor and grant recipient rather than a feeder sub to larger firms.

Teaming with Washington University is endemic across the grant footprint—SLU serves as sub-recipient on at least 30 NICHD, NIAID, and foundation grants led by Washington University, covering implementation science projects in Nigeria (HPV vaccination, hepatitis B vaccination, HIV prevention, music-inspired BP/stroke campaigns), child maltreatment policy research, clinical and translational science training, and translational research funding. SLU also subcontracts to the University of Alabama at Birmingham on halogen gas toxicity research (July 2026 subaward), Washington University on infectious disease mechanisms (June 2026), and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center on geospatial phenotyping and remote sensing (multiple sub-awards 2025–2026). The institution does not hold visible positions on contract primes, indicating it competes primarily as an independent research institution and grant recipient rather than as a contractor to defense or civilian agencies.

Award completion risk over the next 24 months is modest: 73 awards carrying combined potential value of $944 thousand are reaching ultimate completion, representing less than 0.1% of the institution's dollar footprint. The largest single recompete opportunity is the NIAID pre-clinical models IDIQ (completion July 2031), which at $146.3 million will require recompete or renewal planning in the 2029–2031 window.