University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, operating through its Office of Sponsored Research, is a non-profit research institution and state-controlled college that serves as prime recipient on federal grants and a subordinate performer on federal grants and contracts, with a massive portfolio spanning biomedical research, environmental science, and STEM education across 290 federal customer agencies. The university competes full-and-open on federal procurements; no set-aside applies to this academic entity.

UNC-CH commands one of the largest federal research footprints in the United States. Over the past five years, the institution received 2,749 awards (591 in 2023, 919 in 2024, 736 in 2025, 503 in 2026, and 18 in 2027 through early October) with combined potential value of $1.75 billion and actual obligated dollars of $16.19 billion. The recipient operates as prime on 81 percent of these awards and as sub-recipient on 19 percent. Concentration is high: the National Institutes of Health dominates the funding portfolio—NIH alone accounts for 1,274 awards—with the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and National Cancer Institute each placing 500-plus awards. These top five customer accounts represent 39 percent of all awards by count. By dollar value, NHLBI ($615 million), NIAID ($315.7 million), and NCI ($205.8 million) anchor the top tier, collectively representing 71 percent of combined potential value.

Recent grant work exemplifies the breadth and depth of UNC-CH's research mission. In the biomedical sciences, the institution received awards from NCI to develop PARP7 inhibition combined with radiotherapy to overcome immune checkpoint inhibition resistance in triple negative breast cancer ($100 thousand, through June 2029); from NHLBI to develop SPARKS-DCM, a multiscale computational modeling framework for platelet integrin disorders ($655 thousand, through May 2030); from NIAID to develop adjuvanted peptide-displaying virus-like particles for treating peanut allergy ($755 thousand, through July 2031); and from NCI to investigate chemotherapy-induced transcriptomic signatures in Ewing sarcoma ($1.892 million, through August 2029). Environmental and materials science grants include NSF funding for self-powered perovskite photon-counting detector arrays for low-power optical interconnects ($373 thousand, through September 2029), tensor-based frameworks for modeling complex dynamical systems ($409 thousand, through September 2029), and an agile global observing platform for federating optical and radio telescopes at constellation scale—Skynet 2—($873 thousand, through July 2029). Educational grants span NSF support for the Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity in Chemistry ($388 thousand, 2027–2029), the Carolina College Advising Corps ($60 AmeriCorps members across North Carolina), and the Lead for NC program at the School of Government.

On the contract side, UNC-CH holds an EPA indefinite-delivery contract for Next Generation Sequencing Services (ceiling $2.02 million, through March 2031) and places task orders across the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, which lists 26 unique labor categories ranging from Research Assistant at $39.35 per hour (high school equivalent, zero experience) to Project Manager 2 at $253.33 per hour (PhD, 15 years experience). Recent MAS task orders include a $494.9 thousand call from EPA's Office of Air and Radiation for emissions modeling tools support (August 2026–August 2028), a $651 thousand BPA call for EPA air quality modeling systems (July 2026–August 2027), and a $114 thousand call for CAP88 model support (July 2026–July 2027). A $40 thousand purchase order from FDA for skin-prick test measurements of cashew allergen extract (September 2026–September 2027) and a $250 thousand order from VA's Integrated Service Network 6 for UNC Public Health Leadership and Practice research activities in mental health integration (September 2026–September 2027) round out the recent contract sample.

Service Contract Inventory data captures federal service work above the $150,000 threshold across FY2022–FY2025. SCI-reported invoiced revenue totaled $81.3 million across 177 records (147 prime, 30 sub): FY2022 brought $18.9 million across 78.9 FTEs, FY2023 $18.5 million across 65.5 FTEs, FY2024 $23.8 million across 89.7 FTEs, and FY2025 $20.1 million across 92.8 FTEs. On federal services contracts captured in SCI, median government-paid rates ran around $118 per hour, with senior labor pricing reaching $197 per hour at the 90th percentile. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed roughly 18 percent of total contractor hours, with 90 named subcontractors identified in the dataset. Sub-award activity shows UNC-CH acts as sub-recipient to primes including University of Pittsburgh, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, University of Michigan, and others on biomedical research, implementation science, and clinical trial coordination work—examples include analysis of immune effects in head and neck cancer clinical trial specimens (University of Pittsburgh), Hepatitis B and HIV Cure Consortium work (Johns Hopkins), and participation in the Women's Health Initiative heart failure data abstraction and classification (A-Team Solutions LLC as prime).

The institution's federal footprint includes participation on 60 GSA Multiple Award Schedule task orders worth $38 million combined, and subordinate roles on several Army, Defense Health Agency, and other federal vehicles. Eight task orders worth $1.3 million run under indefinite-delivery contract W911NF04D0004. The recompete cliff poses material opportunity: 819 awards carrying combined potential value of $66 million will reach ultimate completion within the next 24 months, creating significant recompete exposure and corresponding pursuit leverage for competitors and teaming partners seeking to position against this institution's dominant footprint across NIH institutes.