University Of Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts, operating through its Office of Grant & Contract Administration, is a public research institution and 1862 Land Grant College that functions as a prime recipient on federal grants and a prime contractor on federal research and development awards, with no SBA set-aside designations. Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, the institution operates across 217 distinct federal customer agencies, with a primary focus on research and education delivery rather than commercial contracting.

The institution's federal footprint is dominated by research grants rather than service contracts. Over the past four fiscal years, SCI-reportable invoiced revenue on prime service contracts reached $10.2 million across FY2022–FY2024 (FY2025 reporting is incomplete in the source), with median government-paid rates around $101.91 per hour and rates ranging from $97.50 to $104.57 per hour across the 10th to 90th percentiles. Workforce scale on SCI-reportable prime contracts averaged 16.3 FTEs in FY2023 and 16.6 FTEs in FY2024, though an anomalous spike to 5,377 FTEs in FY2024 reflects contract-level aggregation artifacts rather than operational scale. The institution does not engage significant subcontractor hours on its prime service contracts (0% sub-hours share); research and academic partnerships are structured as sub-recipient relationships on grants rather than as vendor subcontracting arrangements.

Federal customer concentration is steep. The National Science Foundation leads by award count with 1,008 awards (24% of the 4,255 total prime and sub awards in the portfolio), followed by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (274 awards), NASA Shared Services Center (156 awards, $33.3 million combined potential value), NIH (125 awards), and the Department of the Army (102 awards). These five agencies account for 39% of all awards; NASA and USDA carry the highest combined potential values. Recent award activity (the past three years) shows 193 awards in FY2023, 231 in FY2024, and 210 in FY2025, with a sharp decline to three awards recorded for FY2027 (attributable to incomplete source data). A recompete cliff of $31.8 million in potential value sits within the next twenty-four months across 254 expiring awards.

The institution's research and education portfolio spans fundamental and applied work across physical sciences, engineering, life sciences, and agricultural research. Representative recent prime awards include a $2.736 million National Cancer Institute grant (awarded September 1, 2026) for multimodal microbial therapies targeting triple-negative breast cancer; a $2.35 million National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant (August 1, 2026) investigating non-specific electrostatic interactions in biological macromolecules; and a $5.215 million NASA Shared Services Center grant (January 1, 2026) to execute balanced science programs aligned with Congressional direction and National Academies guidance. The Administration for Children and Families awarded two major training and technical assistance contracts: a $9.769 million definitive contract (July 1, 2026) and a $13.67 million Time and Materials contract (September 1, 2025), both supporting Head Start Region 1 programming in Massachusetts.

The institution holds a $750,000 Other Transaction IDV with Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (awarded October 10, 2025) supporting flexible task-order engagement on naval information warfare systems development, quantum technologies, and advanced computing. Prime contract vehicles also include standing indefinite delivery contracts with the Department of the Army and historical research agreements dating to the 1980s–1990s, though these carry minimal recent task-order activity. Sub-award engagement shows the institution functioning as a research partner within larger federal programs: sub-awards from Seattle Children's Hospital (December 2025 and January 2025) support immunology research on tuberculosis; sub-awards from collaborative universities (Weill Cornell, Yale, others) position the institution as a contributing investigator within multi-site NIH and NSF projects rather than as a traditional vendor subcontractor.

The institution's academic mission and Land Grant designation anchor its federal strategy toward education, workforce development, and research infrastructure. Educational deliverables on recent awards include an NSF National Research Traineeship program (September 1, 2025, $2.998 million) training 28 PhD students in nurse-engineer education, a three-year NSF REU Site on transportation engineering research ($465,000, September 1, 2025), and numerous project grants supporting graduate mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and K-12 outreach. Extension and engagement programs funded through USDA Smith-Lever and Hatch mechanism grants ($5.802 million and $3.856 million respectively, FY2026) deliver nutrition education, agricultural extension, forestry research, and community resilience programming across Massachusetts and regionally.

UMass operates a mature research administration function through its Office of Grant & Contract Administration, managing sub-recipient relationships on multi-institutional awards, coordinating compliance across 217 agencies, and maintaining the university's position as a consistent prime recipient of federal research funding across NSF, NIH, USDA, NASA, and Department of Defense portfolios. The institution competes full-and-open on all major awards; no set-aside categories apply to university research recipients.