The Administrators Of Tulane Educational Fund

The Administrators Of Tulane Educational Fund, doing business as Tulane University, is a private non-profit research university headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, that acts as a federal research recipient across grants and as a prime contractor on federal service and research support agreements, with a diverse portfolio spanning infectious disease research, biomedical sciences, educational services, and applied research in engineering and environmental domains. Tulane competes exclusively in full-and-open procurements with no set-asides and receives grants across NIH, NSF, DoD, and other civilian research agencies.

Tulane's federal footprint centers on biomedical research and higher education. The institution receives substantial funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (190 awards, $560.8 million combined potential value) and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (77 awards, $335.8 million), with NSF providing 280 awards across mathematical, physical, biological, and engineering sciences. Recent prime contract and grant work includes a $4.04 million definitive contract with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for OMV prophylaxis research (awarded July 2026, completion July 2030); a $22.6 million definitive contract with NIAID for operation of a Cellular Immunology Core Laboratory at the School of Medicine (FY2024 invoicing: $373 thousand across 1.6 FTEs, cost-no-fee); a $1.72 million delivery order from NIAID under the Simian Vaccine Evaluation Units program for vaccine evaluation studies; and a $1.1 million STEM research grant from NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences for sea-level hotspot modeling. Federal grant programs anchor Tulane's research mission across disease mechanisms, environmental science, AI/machine learning, and workforce training. The institution is particularly active in NIH's extramural programs, holding a ten-year Basic Ordering Agreement with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (effective August 2025 through July 2035) for biomedical research and scientific services. Within the last 24 months, 171 awards (combined potential value $44.3 million) are approaching ultimate completion and face recompete.

Tulane operates as a prime on the vast majority of its federal work (84% of 2,208 awards are primes; 16% are subs). Across SCI-reportable service contracts, the institution invoiced $26.7 million from FY2022 through FY2025, with an FTE trajectory growing from 11.6 in FY2022 to 23.8 in FY2025. Government-paid hourly rates on federal service contracts run a median of $157.04/hr, with a 10th percentile of $108.96/hr and 90th percentile of $357.81/hr. The institution self-performs the majority of its contracted work (average sub-hours share of 3% across prime contracts), with 19 named subcontractors recorded across the SCI dataset. In its subcontractor role, Tulane delivers specialized research services to primes including the National Opinion Research Center (STIIRC support services on doxycycline PEP), the University of Pittsburgh (on prehospital airway control and whole blood resuscitation trials), and La Jolla Institute for Immunology (epitope identification in viral pathogens).

The Tulane National Primate Research Center, one of seven NIH-funded NPRCs, serves as the institutional anchor for Tulane's infectious disease and HIV/AIDS research portfolio. The center maintains a specific pathogen-free (SPF) rhesus macaque breeding colony exceeding 4,500 animals, with 2,404 assigned to NIH-funded HIV/AIDS research over the past decade (63% of center assignments). Recent NIH awards to support primate research include a $7.998 million facility construction grant (awarded September 2025, completion May 2028) for indoor-outdoor housing expansion of the SPF colony, and a cooperative agreement for peptidome-driven mass spectrometry algorithms for nontuberculous mycobacteria identification (awarded September 2025, completion July 2030, with University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as sub-recipient).

Tulane's grant activity spans federal research training initiatives, including the National Human Genome Research Institute's support for the Tulane University / Ochsner Health Genomic Precision Medicine Program (HEROIC) predoctoral training (awarded July 2026, $278 thousand through June 2031), and NSF REU Site funding for use-inspired research in health, energy, and environmental applications ($364 thousand, September 2025 through August 2028). The institution also participates in cooperative research with federal agencies; for example, the Department of Agriculture awarded a $743 thousand cooperative agreement for research on activated foods for cancer prevention and health promotion (effective September 2025 through September 2028).

The institution serves 183 distinct federal customer agencies across its prime and sub roles. Top customers by award count include NSF (280 awards), HHS-NIH broadly (228 awards), NIAID (190 awards), and NHLBI (77 awards), though the dollar concentration by customer varies: NIAID dominates potential value at $560.8 million, followed by NHLBI at $335.8 million. Combined potential value across all awards totals $971.3 million, though obligated dollars ($3.17 billion) exceed potential value by 326%, reflecting the institution's long-standing federal research relationships and multi-year award structures. Tulane awards cluster in NAICS codes for higher education (109 awards) and research and development in physical, engineering, and life sciences (23 and 21 awards respectively), and by PSC code in education/training fees (142 awards) and biomedical and health research services (15 awards each). Recent activity remains strong, with 110 awards in 2026 and continuing awards in 2027, though the portfolio shows modest year-over-year decline from 2024's peak of 206 awards.