Texas Southern University

Texas Southern University, a Historically Black College and University headquartered in Houston, Texas, operates as a federal grant recipient and occasional federal contractor performing research, STEM education programming, workforce development, and institutional strengthening activities primarily under full-and-open (non-set-aside) federal grants and cooperative agreements. TSU is a state-controlled, minority institution—one of the nation's largest HBCUs—with a mission centered on providing quality instruction, scholarly research, and community engagement, particularly for underrepresented minority students in higher education.

TSU's federal footprint is dominated by grant work (295 of 325 total awards, 91%). The university's customer concentration is diffuse across 70 distinct federal agencies, but the top five by award count account for 52% of awards: the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration leads with 73 awards (DDETFP fellowship programs), followed by the Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education (43 awards), the National Science Foundation (32 awards), the National Institutes of Health (11 awards), and NASA's Shared Services Center (10 awards). The potential-value picture shows greater concentration: NASA Johnson Space Center anchors the portfolio with $6.2 million across four awards, while NASA Shared Services Center carries $1.7 million across ten awards, together accounting for 55% of combined potential value. The DoT FHA awards, though numerous, carry minimal per-award value ($32 thousand combined across 73 awards).

TSU's concrete grant work spans STEM education, research, and institutional development. Representative examples include a $964,003 NNSA Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program award (CFDA 81.123) for the Consortium for Research and Education for Advanced Manufacturing of Alloys for Extreme Conditions (REAM), conducting advanced manufacturing research on tungsten alloys with workforce development components running through January 2031; a $1.57 million Department of Education Title III, Part F Strengthening HBCU Program award (CFDA 84.031) for institutional capacity strengthening and academic enhancement; a $2.25 million Air Force Research Laboratory award for the Center for Scientific Machine Learning for Material Sciences; and a $750,000 NASA cooperative agreement for STEM engagement programming to attract students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields through authentic learning experiences connecting to NASA's mission. TSU also serves as a regional grantmaker under the Inflation Reduction Act Environmental Justice Thriving Communities program, distributing $51.7 million in subawards through an EPA cooperative agreement and managing subrecipient progress reporting across climate and environmental justice initiatives.

TSU's subrecipient and sub-award footprint (30 sub-awards, 9% of total) reflects participation in larger research consortia and collaborative networks. TSU receives sub-awards from prime grantees including Baylor College of Medicine (maternal and infant health research, cancer research partnerships, perinatal health disparities studies), the University of Houston System (biomedical research collaborations), the University of Texas at San Antonio (environmental air quality assessment), the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (Clinical and Translational Science Alliance participation), and Florida A&M University (HBCU Collider Consortium). These sub-awards position TSU as a research node within multi-institution studies, contributing faculty expertise, student engagement, and community partnerships to NIH-funded maternal health networks, NSF-supported research capacity initiatives, and equity-focused research platforms.

The portfolio shows steady grant activity with 15 awards in 2022, 31 in 2023, declining to 21 in 2024 and 14 in 2025, suggesting maturation rather than declining engagement. Sixteen awards (combined potential value $181 thousand) face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating modest recompete pressure. TSU's two federal contracts (a $660,149 Smithsonian Institution definitive contract for HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium participation completed in 2024, and a $750,000 NASA cooperative agreement for STEM engagement) are exceptions; the university's federal engagement is overwhelmingly grant-based rather than contract-based. Primary NAICS categories cluster around educational institutions and R&D services; principal PSC codes reflect space science research, basic research across disciplines, and education/training delivery.