Trustees Of Dartmouth College

Trustees of Dartmouth College, operating through its Office of Sponsored Projects Division and doing business as Dartmouth College, serves as a prime recipient of federal research grants spanning biomedical sciences, environmental research, space science, engineering, mathematics, and computational technologies, with no participation in federal service contracts or procurement vehicles. Dartmouth is a private Ivy League research university headquartered in Hanover, New Hampshire, competing in full-and-open federal grant competitions without SBA set-asides across 175 customer federal agencies.

Dartmouth's federal funding portfolio is anchored in research grants, not contracts. The institution acts as prime recipient on 2,582 awards (88% of total activity) and sub-recipient on 336 awards, spanning a combined potential value of $639.3 million across 2,918 total awards since 1976. The National Science Foundation leads by volume with 433 grants, followed by the National Institutes of Health (309 awards) and NASA's Shared Services Center (215 awards). The National Cancer Institute, however, anchors the largest dollar concentration—135 awards with $506.8 million combined potential value. Activity has grown from 136 awards in 2022 to a peak of 217 in 2024, though FY2025 and FY2026 counts are partial-year figures. Approximately 221 awards (combined potential value $25.9 million) face completion within the next twenty-four months, representing the recompete window.

Capability portfolio reflects fundamental and use-inspired research across multiple domains. Representative prime grant work includes a $2.77 million Center for Implementation Science (COBRE) from NIGMS to establish multidisciplinary research infrastructure in implementation science (awarded August 2025, through May 2031); a $1.66 million Project Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate suicide transmission dynamics on social media among young adults using computational social science and Natural Language Processing (awarded September 2025, through June 2030); a $1.495 million definitive contract from the Army Engineer Research and Development Center for research on subsurface anomalies detection and classification using advanced signal processing (awarded September 2024, through September 2027); a $1.2 million contract with the Army ERDC for applied snow science in changing high-latitude landscapes (awarded September 2024, through September 2029); and a $909 thousand contract with the Army Humphreys Engineer Center Support Activity to develop electromagnetic induction sensors for detecting lead and copper pipes in real field conditions under the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (awarded September 2025, through September 2029). Educational grant work includes a $530 thousand CAREER award from NSF's Division of Materials Research for broadband cryogenic transient dielectric spectroscopy research on quantum materials (awarded August 2026, through July 2031) and a $450 thousand award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to investigate RNA-binding proteins during oocyte meiosis and early embryogenesis (awarded June 2026, through May 2028). Dartmouth also manages smaller service contracts under a Veterans Integrated Service Network 1 indefinite delivery vehicle worth $31.8 thousand for Institutional Biosafety Committee oversight of VA research (awarded August 2022, through August 2027).

Customer concentration is distributed across mission agencies but concentrated in research dollars. NIH awards dominate by dollar value—NCI alone represents $506.8 million (79% of top-five-agency potential value), with NIAID and NIGMS as significant funders of basic biomedical research. NSF and NASA distribute awards across multiple directorates and centers, with the Shared Services Center (a NASA routing vehicle) representing 215 awards worth $47.9 million. The Department of Veterans Affairs, Army, and Department of Energy appear as secondary customers, reflecting research in health services, military-relevant technologies, and basic science. This concentration signals Dartmouth's positioning as a premier recipient of NIH-funded biomedical and fundamental research, with secondary but substantial exposure to NSF, NASA, and defense research.

Dartmouth does not hold or actively bid on federal procurement contracts or government-wide acquisition vehicles. The source identifies no GWACs, IDIQs, schedule positions, or BPA vehicles in Dartmouth's portfolio. The single indefinite delivery contract referenced (VA VISN 1 IBC services) represents administrative service delivery ancillary to research. Dartmouth competes exclusively in federal grant programs—NIH, NSF, DoD research announcements, NASA solicitations, and similar mechanisms—where awards are based on peer review of research merit, institutional capacity, and alignment with federal research priorities.

Service Contract Inventory data shows minimal federal service contract activity: $549 thousand invoiced across FY2023–FY2024 on six prime records and four sub records, with 2.5 FTEs delivered in FY2024. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable work run a median of $66.94 per hour (tenth percentile $50.77/hr, ninetieth percentile $465.77/hr), reflecting the specialized, research-intensive nature of the limited SCI-reportable activity. Dartmouth does not operate as a service contractor; SCI figures represent incidental administrative or support labor embedded within research grants rather than primary delivery vehicles.

Teaming pattern is primarily sub-recipient on NIH, NSF, and NASA grants when complementary expertise resides elsewhere. The source lists sub-awardees from Dartmouth under prime grants held by Johns Hopkins University (fMRI data processing), University of Iowa (NASA heliophysics mission concept), Seattle Children's Hospital (structural biology research support), and other institutions. Conversely, Dartmouth issues sub-awards to partner institutions—Montana State University for REAL CubeSat data processing (awarded June 2026), Planetary Science Institute for Mars hydrology research (April 2026), University of Pittsburgh for biofilm research on Pseudomonas aeruginosa (March 2026), and dozens of other collaborators. This reflects Dartmouth's role as both prime research recipient and collaborative partner within the academic research ecosystem rather than as a prime contractor managing supply chains or procuring commercial goods and services.

Dartmouth College's federal footprint is a research institution's footprint: large-scale, multidisciplinary receipt of federal research funding, managed through its Office of Sponsored Projects, with no commercial procurement or contract-vehicle activity. For business development professionals at federal contractors, Dartmouth represents a university customer, not a competitor for procurement work, and a potential research partner or sub-award source for academically-grounded research capabilities in biomedical science, engineering, environmental monitoring, and computational methods.