Texas A & M University Kingsville

Texas A&M University-Kingsville, a public Hispanic-serving institution within the Texas A&M University System, receives federal grants and contracts as a prime recipient and contractor in agricultural research, wildlife conservation, environmental science, STEM education, and student support services—predominantly through grants from USDA, NSF, NIH, and the Department of Education, with no federal contracting set-asides and no performance under federal procurement vehicles.

Texas A&M Kingsville operates as a state government entity and educational institution headquartered at 700 University Blvd, Kingsville, Texas. The university is designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution and 1862 Land Grant College. Recent federal activity spans 485 awards across 75 distinct federal agencies, with prime awards representing 91% of the portfolio and subgrant/subcontract awards comprising 9%. The institution competes exclusively in full-and-open, non-set-aside categories across research and education programs.

The university's federal customer base is concentrated in agriculture, education, and science agencies. The Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service Region 2 anchors the potential-value ranking with $14 million across 10 awards, driven primarily by two large wildlife research cooperative agreements: a $12.2 million definitive contract for South Texas endangered ocelot protection and recovery services (ultimate completion September 30, 2027) and a $1.75 million firm fixed-price purchase order for ecological impact assessment of border barrier construction on large mammals (completion September 30, 2027). NASA's Shared Services Center has placed 14 awards totaling $2.2 million in potential value, including a $1.2 million cooperative agreement for STEM workforce pathways serving underrepresented minorities in aerospace and a $749,989 cooperative agreement for STEM engagement education programs. The Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) dominates by award count with 115 awards but carries only $40 thousand in stated potential value; APHIS cooperative agreements focus on Texas citrus pest surveillance, biological control research, and plant pathogen testing—work that is recurring and operationally critical to state agricultural health but typically structured as annual or multi-year continuing agreements with modest stated ceilings that belie actual invoiced volumes.

Capability portfolio centers on applied agricultural research and environmental science. Representative awards include the ocelot protection contract (field research, captive breeding facility operation, habitat management across Nueces, San Patricio, and Aransas counties, Texas); a $2.4 million USDA cooperative agreement for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in mammalian populations across central and south Texas (sampling livestock, companion animals, captive and free-ranging wildlife for variant identification); a $999,676 Department of Homeland Security cooperative agreement to develop cyber intelligence education and training programs (Intensive Accelerated Training in Cyber Intelligence for high school and community college students, Online Certificate Program in Cyber Intelligence, and a Cyber Intelligence Research Lab); and a $999,999 DHS Scientific Leadership Award for cyber intelligence workforce development. The university also operates the Texas Citrus Clean Plant Certification Program, which maintains over 4,100 increase trees and 450 scion trees across multiple screenhouses and provides certified budwood to the Texas citrus industry under multiple APHIS cooperative agreements. The Alkek Ungulate Research Facility at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute supports cervid breeding and chronic wasting disease research. In STEM education, awards support student support services, teacher professional development, research experiences for undergraduates, and graduate training in transdisciplinary environmental and engineering fields.

Recompete exposure in the next twenty-four months totals $14.1 million across 39 awards with ultimate completion dates falling in that window. This represents significant federal grant activity renewal cycle risk, particularly for the recurring APHIS citrus monitoring and research agreements and for Department of Education student support services grants (TRIO programs, Upward Bound, Educational Opportunity Centers) that require annual or biennial recompetition.

Service Contract Inventory data captures $2.6 million in SCI-reportable invoiced federal services in FY2024, delivered by 8.0 FTEs on two prime contracts. This represents a narrow view of the university's federal services footprint; SCI excludes grant-funded research work, goods, products, and micro-purchases. Median government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable contracts run around $133/hr, with rates spanning $89–$177/hr across the rate distribution. The university self-performs all SCI-reportable work, with zero subcontractor hour share on prime contracts in the sample.

The university acts exclusively as a prime recipient on federal grants and carries minimal subcontract exposure in recent years. Federal subgrant relationships identified in the source include sub-awards as recipient under primes including the University of Florida (citrus HLB research), Texas A&M Agrilife Research (carbon sequestration, organic cotton), University of Georgia Research Foundation (sustainable agriculture), and Regents of the University of California at Riverside (citrus rootstock breeding for HLB regions). These subgrant roles reflect disciplinary collaboration on USDA-funded agricultural research rather than a systematic role as a subrecipient feeder to larger institutions.

Award activity has declined from a recent peak of 43 awards in 2022 to 5 new awards through mid-2026; the 2024–2025 awards-per-year volume of 21 and 39 awards respectively represents a normalized baseline reflecting the project-grant nature of the university's portfolio (discrete research awards with multi-year completion dates rather than rolling indefinite-delivery or task-order vehicles). The institution operates as an administrative and research entity within the Texas A&M University System, which serves as parent organization.