University Of South Florida

University of South Florida, a public research institution headquartered in Tampa, Florida, operates as a prime recipient and contractor across a broad federal portfolio spanning research grants, educational services, and analytical support contracts delivered to 233 distinct federal customer agencies. USF competes predominantly full-and-open rather than under set-asides, with 87% of recent awards as prime positions and 13% as subcontractor work. The university's federal footprint reaches across civilian agencies dominated by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs, and NASA, with combined potential value of $400 million across 3,810 awards tracked since 1980.

USF's capability portfolio centers on fundamental biomedical and life sciences research, marine and environmental science, engineering and computational systems, and educational services. The source documents core research activities across cancer biology, infectious disease, cardiovascular physiology, neurodegenerative disease, ocean and climate science, and quantum computing—alongside educational support including NROTC tuition, graduate fellowship administration, and workforce development programs. Representative recent work includes a $4.64 million NIH award (CFDA 93.847) for circulating microRNA biomarker discovery in type 1 diabetes; a $3.37 million National Science Foundation cooperative agreement for an online research administration workforce development curriculum; a $2.87 million NIAID award for penicillin-binding protein structure-function studies in Clostridioides difficile; and a $2.568 million OSHA consulting block grant administering Florida's occupational safety and health consultation program. The university also holds contracts for analytical and veterinary services with the Department of Veterans Affairs—including a $1.06 million definitive contract for biostatistician research assistant services and $570 thousand for animal research support and oversight.

Customer concentration splits between volume and dollars. By award count, the top five agencies—National Science Foundation (612 awards), NIH (191 awards), Veterans Health Administration VISN 8 (189 awards), NASA Shared Services Center (158 awards), and National Institute on Aging (101 awards)—represent 33% of awards. By potential value, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases dominates with 54 awards worth $211.2 million combined potential, followed distantly by VISN 8 ($65.2 million), NASA ($34.1 million), Bureau of Medicine and Surgery ($4.4 million), and U.S. Geological Survey ($953 thousand). VISN 8 concentration illustrates this split: 189 awards by count but third-ranked by dollars, indicating frequent small service contracts alongside larger research awards.

USF holds positions on multiple federal indefinite delivery vehicles. The top parent vehicles include Navy IDC N0060085G1795 with 76 task orders valued at $4.4 million combined; Navy IDC N0014006G0054 with 36 task orders at $9 million; and Navy Basic Ordering Agreement N0018918GZ042 with 30 task orders at $3.5 million. These vehicles anchor service delivery to defense medical and personnel agencies rather than civilian research funding.

Activity has modulated year to year—214 awards in 2023, 283 in 2024, 228 in 2025, and 113 in 2026 (partial year)—with 253 awards (combined potential value $13 million) completing within the next 24 months facing recompete exposure. Service Contract Inventory data show SCI-reportable invoicing of $2.7 million across FY2022–FY2025, with 707 thousand dollars in FY2023, 833 thousand in FY2024, and 1.1 million in FY2025. The SCI dataset reveals a workforce scale of roughly 205 FTEs in FY2023 declining to 196 in FY2025, with median government-paid rates around $44.57 per hour and senior labor pricing extending through $100.36 per hour. SCI data represent a strict subset of federal services activity and do not reflect the university's full enterprise revenue.

As a research university, USF operates as a prime recipient on the vast majority of its awards and does not engage subcontractors on the prime contracts captured in SCI. The university does serve as a subcontractor to other universities and research institutions—appearing as a sub-recipient on grants from institutions including Indiana University, Johns Hopkins, Arizona State, Institute for Systems Biology, Case Western Reserve, Children's Hospital Boston, Ohio State, University of Florida, Tennessee Tech, Scripps, and others. On those sub-awards, USF typically provides specialized research capabilities: data management and statistical analysis for clinical trials, neuroimaging and neuroscience research, infectious disease epidemiology, bioinformatics analysis, and educational program implementation. This pattern reflects USF's role as both independent principal investigator and collaborative research partner across the NIH, NSF, and NASA portfolios.

The university operates two named subsidiaries: USF Health Professions Conferencing Corporation (non-profit organization) and Florida Institute of Oceanography (state government entity focused on marine research and education). These entities broaden USF's capacity for specialized service delivery within marine science and healthcare education domains.