The Chancellor, Masters, And Scholars Of The University Of Cambridge

The Chancellor, Masters, And Scholars Of The University Of Cambridge, operating as the University of Cambridge, is a Cambridge, UK-based non-profit research university that receives federal contract and grant funding as a prime recipient but does not operate as a prime contractor on federal service contracts. The institution participates in the federal research and educational funding ecosystem predominantly through project grants and sole-source purchase orders for tuition and program fees, with no set-aside status and 74% of its recent awards structured as prime (contract and grant) relationships.

Cambridge's federal footprint centers on biomedical and defense-related research and training. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases dominates by award count, accounting for 57 awards ($3.6 million combined potential value) spanning the NIH-Wide Global Doctoral Partnership and Oxford-Cambridge University Doctoral Program, which provide tuition and fees for NIH Fellows conducting collaborative biomedical research. Representative NIAID contracts include a $408,000 purchase order (awarded September 28, 2026) for tuition payment and academic support under the Global Doctoral Partnership running through September 2028, a $354,000 purchase order (September 30, 2025) for Oxford-Cambridge scholars, and a $312,000 purchase order (September 14, 2022) covering nine new and twenty-four continuing fellows for the 2022–2023 academic year. The Department of the Air Force (33 awards), the Department of the Navy (20 awards), and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (21 awards) round out the top customer agencies, though dollar concentrations are dispersed across NIH institutes. Cambridge also received a $23,283 purchase order (March 21, 2024) from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute for program fees for the Judge Business School Advanced Leadership Programme, and a $15,177 purchase order (August 8, 2023) from the National Cancer Institute for sequencing services.

On the grant side, Cambridge acts as prime recipient on federal research awards spanning basic science, biomedical research, and defense technology. The Defense Health Agency has funded multiple project grants in cancer research, including a $4.6 million grant (September 1, 2023) on multi-modal data integration across breast cancer molecular subtypes to develop predictors of treatment response and a $1.997 million grant (September 1, 2023) on the same research, both running through August 2027. The Air Force has supported materials science and physics research, including a $312,000 project grant (August 1, 2022) on massively parallel laser arrays for selective laser melting of Inconel 718, running through July 2027. The Office of Naval Research has funded projects on mechanical metamaterials and materials science, including a September 1, 2024 project grant on adaptable mechanical metamaterials and an August 1, 2022 grant on hot corrosion modeling. Cambridge also holds a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency cooperative agreement (November 15, 2023) on mechanically interlocked materials, and received a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases project grant (February 7, 2022) on antigenic evolution of influenza viruses. Work is performed at Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Cambridge acts as a subcontractor on both federal contracts and grants. On the contract side, Cambridge subcontracts to Sri International on a "Deploying Effective Compartmentalization" project (awarded September 19, 2024) involving chromium web browser compartmentalization and RISC-V design, and to The Johns Hopkins University on NIAID Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (June 21, 2024). On the grant side, Cambridge holds numerous sub-awards as a collaborating research site, including work under The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania on decentralized communication and action policies for autonomous agents (multiple sub-awards between May 2025 and October 2024), under Harvard College on connectomics research and FlyBase curation (multiple sub-awards from March 2024 through November 2024), and under The Washington University on virome analysis in inflammatory bowel disease (multiple sub-awards from August 2016 through January 2024). Cambridge also partners on cancer research under Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (multiple sub-awards from January 2024 through June 2025), on influenza immunity research under The Washington University (October 15, 2024), and on AI and machine learning research under Cornell University (January 22, 2024).

Activity has grown significantly in recent years, rising from 13 awards in 2022 to 35 in 2024, before moderating to 15 in 2025 and 6 through September 2026. Eleven awards with completion in the next twenty-four months carry a combined potential value of $408,000, indicating modest near-term recompete exposure at the contract level; however, the pipeline of federal grants extending through 2027 and 2028 suggests sustained engagement with defense and health research sponsors. Service Contract Inventory data captures minimal SCI-reportable activity — four subcontractor records across fiscal years 2022 through 2025 totaling roughly 3–5 FTEs per year — indicating that Cambridge's federal footprint is dominated by grants and educational purchase orders rather than service contracts above the $150,000 reporting threshold.