University Of Delaware

University of Delaware, a private 1862 land-grant research institution headquartered in Newark, Delaware, is a federal research grant and contract recipient operating as a prime across a portfolio of 4,288 awards spanning basic research, applied research, facility operations, and education programs. The institution competes predominantly in full-and-open federal research solicitations managed by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture, with no set-aside designations across its prime footprint.

The University of Delaware's capability portfolio is discipline-agnostic and spans the full research continuum: basic science in quantum materials, magnetic sensing, and molecular biology; applied research in bioprocess engineering, neuromorphic computing, and environmental remediation; technology development in advanced composites and energy systems; and education and workforce development through cooperative extension, STEM programming, and graduate research training. Representative recent prime work includes a $11.7 million Office of Naval Research definitive contract for research on tailored universal feedstock technology for composite materials (awarded April 2026), a $5 million NSF AI Institute for Human-AI Cooperation cooperative agreement to develop human-centered AI decision support in rehabilitation settings (awarded July 2026), and a $2.888 million ARPA-E cooperative agreement to develop electrothermochemical processing for polyolefin recycling (awarded September 2025). The institution also holds significant federal grant portfolios across the National Institutes of Health, NSF, NOAA, and USDA, ranging from individual investigator project grants under $500 thousand to center and program awards exceeding $1 million over multi-year periods.

Customer concentration is extremely broad. The National Science Foundation leads by award count with 834 awards, followed by the Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (291 awards), and NASA's Shared Services Center (231 awards, $58.3 million combined potential value). By dollar magnitude, NASA Shared Services Center dominates at $58.3 million, followed by the Office of Naval Research ($34.3 million), and NOAA ($5.4 million). Of the 4,728 total awards in the source, prime and sub combined, the top five customer agencies account for approximately 36% of recent award volume, and the top five by potential value represent 33% of combined potential value. This diversification across 233 distinct federal agencies reflects the university's position as a comprehensive research institution with no concentrated customer dependency.

Activity has remained relatively stable at 241–316 awards per year across FY2023–FY2025, with a decline in reported FY2026 volume (141 awards) attributable to incomplete source data; 289 awards are set to reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, carrying combined potential value of $13.1 million, representing moderate recompete exposure.

The University of Delaware operates through a single corporate entity structure; the source identifies "University Of Delaware (Private University or College, Non-Profit Organization, Educational Institution)" as a subsidiary, indicating consolidated reporting under the parent entity.

SCI-reportable federal service contract invoicing totaled $847 thousand across FY2022–FY2025 (FY2022: $600 thousand; FY2023: $125 thousand; FY2024: $122 thousand; FY2025: $0). This narrow data window reflects the institution's limited exposure to reportable service contracts above the $150 thousand threshold; SCI is a strict subset of the university's total federal revenue and does not capture research grants, which dominate the institution's portfolio. Across the three FYs with reported activity, workforce scale ranged from 0.5 to 1.7 FTEs on SCI-reportable prime contracts. Government-paid hourly rates on service contracts cluster around a median of $116.08/hr, with 10th-percentile rates at $80.42/hr and 90th-percentile rates at $160.58/hr. Sub-engagement on SCI-reportable prime contracts was zero percent, indicating the university performs these services in-house rather than through subcontractors.

The University of Delaware is the parent entity with no named subsidiary corporate structures in the source. The institution competes as a research entity, not as a traditional defense contractor or systems integrator; its role is as a grant recipient and contract research performer in support of federal agency missions in science, energy, defense science and technology, agriculture, and education.