The University Of Southern Mississippi

The University Of Southern Mississippi Office Of Research Support And Development Division, a division of a public research university and state-controlled institution of higher learning headquartered in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, acts as a prime recipient and prime contractor for federal grants and research contracts spanning science, technology, and education in full-and-open competition without set-asides. The division is not a separate legal entity but an operational unit of the university coordinating research administration, grant management, and contract execution across the institution's doctoral-level research enterprise.

The Office Of Research Support And Development delivers federally-funded research, education, and training services across materials science, marine and coastal science, biomedical research, workforce development, and emergency management. Recent representative contract work includes a $7.0 million delivery order from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to provide training and education services for the Jackson Heart Study (a large-scale cardiovascular epidemiology study) extending through September 2030; a $1.5 million indefinite-delivery contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center for specialized polymer materials, testing, and analysis services supporting modular protective structures; a $999.6 thousand definitive contract from the Office of Naval Research for coastal and littoral geospatial data and artificial intelligence integration research; and a $750 thousand project grant from NIAID investigating the role of extracellular polyphosphate in Mycobacterium tuberculosis antibiotic tolerance. Grant recipients include the National Science Foundation (polymer science, chemistry, oceanography, and workforce development), NOAA (ecosystem restoration and coastal monitoring), the Department of Health and Human Services (infectious disease research, mental health, and health workforce training), and the Department of Defense (materials research and technical services).

Customer concentration is distributed across 138 distinct federal agencies, but about 38% of awards cluster with NOAA (152 awards), the National Science Foundation (147 awards), NASA Stennis Space Center (89 awards), HHS Health Resources and Services Administration (37 awards), and the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education (28 awards). By potential value, NASA Stennis Space Center dominates at $44.6 million (89 awards), followed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center at $30.3 million (23 awards), the Office of the Secretary of Defense at $4.4 million (11 awards), NASA Shared Services Center at $4.2 million (21 awards), and the Office of Naval Research at $1.1 million (21 awards). The agency rankings diverge—NOAA places many small awards while NASA Stennis anchors the largest dollar commitments.

The division holds multiple indefinite-delivery contracts with NASA, including NNS08AA83B (41 task orders, $9.4 million), NNS06AA98B (39 task orders, $11.3 million), NAS1303032 (32 task orders, $14.5 million), and NNS14AA17B (24 task orders, $5.7 million), reflecting sustained engagement in space science and Earth observation research. A single-award IDC with NHLBI for the Jackson Heart Study carries a $14.5 million ceiling through September 2035. The university also operates a $1.5 million indefinite-delivery contract with ERDC for polymer materials and testing services.

Activity has declined from a peak of 85 awards in 2024 to 61 in 2025, with only 11 awards recorded through mid-2026 in the current snapshot; 64 awards valued at $2.9 million face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and represent recompete exposure for external competitors. The division's award portfolio centers on NAICS 541712 (research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences except biotechnology) and PSC codes supporting professional services research and defense-focused basic research. The Service Contract Inventory dataset captures only 7 records above the $150,000 reporting threshold with no reported invoiced revenue in FY2022–FY2024 and negligible FTE trajectory (0.1 FTEs in FY2024), indicating that the division's federal activity is dominated by grants and research contracts (which fall outside SCI scope) rather than service contracts subject to labor reporting.

The division operates 90% of its awards as prime (1,073 of 1,190) and subcontracts on 10% (117 awards), primarily to primes including Radiance Technologies (hardware-in-the-loop testbeds for maritime port operations), The University of Mississippi, Florida International University (acoustic monitoring services), and other Mississippi-based research institutions. The university competes full-and-open across civilian science agencies (NSF, NOAA, NIH, NASA) and defense agencies (Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research) without SBA set-asides, leveraging its institutional strengths in polymer science, coastal and marine research, materials development, and federal R&D administration to sustain a broad portfolio of concurrent research awards.