University Of North Florida

University of North Florida's Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, a public research institution in Jacksonville, Florida, operates as a federal grant recipient and contract prime across a broad portfolio spanning education, research, and training services. The office administers federal grants and contracts competitively with no set-aside designations, receiving funding from sixty-two distinct federal agencies across science, education, defense, and transportation domains.

The university's federal footprint divides nearly evenly between prime awards (50% of activity) and subcontract or sub-grant participation (50%). Customer concentration is driven by two distinct patterns. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dominates by award count, sponsoring 142 awards (45% of all activity) through the Florida Department of Transportation, primarily for law-enforcement training in crash investigation, impaired driving detection, and pedestrian safety — work performed through pass-through sub-awards rather than direct prime awards to UNF. By potential value, concentration shifts sharply toward research and development: the Department of the Army Materiel Command Research Development and Engineering Command anchors the largest dollar awards at $6.5 million across five prime grants, followed by the Naval Education and Training Command at $4 million across three awards. NASA, the Marine Corps, and NOAA round out the top-five customer set by dollar value.

Recent prime grant work reflects UNF's research mission across engineering, life sciences, and education. Representative awards include a $2.07 million Department of Education grant for civics and American history professional development (October 2025 through September 2026); a $1.347 million National Science Foundation award for developing a tabletop role-playing game to advance STEM learning in informal settings (August 2025 through July 2029); a $524 thousand NASA research grant on eclipsing binary star systems observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (February 2024 through February 2027); a $200 thousand NSF Engineering Research Initiation award for vision-simulation-driven quality control in laser powder bed fusion manufacturing (July 2026 through June 2028); and a $750 thousand Department of Education FIPSE grant for virtual cloud computing and cybersecurity infrastructure development (June 2023 through May 2026). The research portfolio spans materials science, biomedical engineering, astrophysics, pediatric rehabilitation technology, machine learning for epilepsy management, and coastal ecosystem restoration.

UNF participates as a sub-recipient on grant programs administered by the State of Florida Department of Transportation and other state and university prime grantees. Notable sub-grant work includes traffic safety training curriculum delivery on behalf of FDOT, behavioral health and substance-misuse services implementation in rural Georgia counties through the Community Services Board of Middle Georgia, data analysis and preprocessing for autism neuroimaging research under Indiana University's prime grant, and teacher residency program support through Florida's AmeriCorps initiative.

Federal contract awards are minimal and specialized: two small purchase orders from Naval Education and Training Command for tuition and fees ($17,807 in August 2024 and $13,535 in September 2023), a $157,975 purchase order from the Marine Corps for ISO 9001/14001 audit training (September 2023), and a $17,410 purchase order from Naval Facilities Engineering Command for real property law training site services (June 2023). The university subcontracts to Triad National Security, LLC on Los Alamos National Laboratory work. No agency IDIQs, GWACs, or multi-award vehicles appear in the award record; contract activity routes through single purchase orders and delivery orders.

Activity profile shows high volatility. Awards per year peaked at eighty-three in 2023 (driven by the FDOT NHTSA pass-through awards), fell to eighteen in 2024, recovered to thirty in 2025, and show only two awards recorded to date in 2026 (source captured through July 2026). Combined potential value across all awards totals $14.5 million, but obligated dollars ($97.9 million) exceed potential value by a factor of 6.77, indicating substantial baseline funding through multi-year agreements and prior-year obligations. Sixteen awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry $524 thousand in combined potential value, representing moderate recompete exposure concentrated in the transportation safety training and research grant portfolios.

The university's primary NAICS classification reflects its educational mission (Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools), with secondary exposure in research and development services. Service delivery spans multiple geographic regions — Jacksonville for administrative oversight, coastal Florida for environmental research, and nationwide reach for federally funded training and education programs.