The University Of Texas At El Paso

The University of Texas At El Paso, a public research university and Hispanic-serving institution (HSI), operates as a prime recipient on federal research grants and a prime contractor on federal service and research contracts, with 90 percent of its recent 1,472 awards in a prime role across research, education, training, and specialized services to 177 federal agencies.

UTEP is a Carnegie Classification R1 doctoral research institution and state-controlled higher-education entity headquartered in El Paso, Texas. As a minority institution and 1890 Land Grant College, UTEP holds no small-business set-asides on its federal work; the university competes in full-and-open procurements. The institution has served as a child entity of the University of Texas System since its founding. Across its 1,472 recent awards (first in the source data dating to June 1985), UTEP has accumulated a combined potential value of $68.1 million and obligated combined federal dollars of $1.42 billion, reflecting a mature and diversified federal funding footprint spanning research, education, and infrastructure support.

UTEP's capability portfolio centers on advanced manufacturing, materials science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, aerospace engineering, environmental science, geosciences, and computational research. Representative contract work includes a $450,000 Army Forces Command purchase order for advanced manufacturing training (awarded May 2026, completion May 2027, El Paso), a $55,000 NASA Shared Services Center purchase order for additive manufacturing angled walls and laser system characterization under the Game Changing Development initiative (awarded March 2026, 50 percent NASA-UTEP cost share), and a $322,715 Army Materiel Command task order under contract W911QX20D0002 for cyber DevOps and senior capstone support at White Sands Missile Range (awarded July 2023, completion July 2025). UTEP also holds a delivery order position on the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) IDIQ contract issued by the Missile Defense Agency on December 29, 2025 (ceiling value $151 billion, completion December 2035), a multi-domain defense procurement supporting research and development, systems engineering, weapon design, and modernization across classified and unclassified programs.

Federal research grant activity is substantial. In the past year, UTEP received awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for diverse projects including a $2.99 million S-STEM Research Hub on graduate opportunity for low-income STEM students (October 2026–September 2031, Scholarships in STEM Education program, CFDA 47.076), a $452,933 REU Site on intelligent manufacturing, AI, and digital twins (October 2026–September 2029, CFDA 47.041), a $1.99 million CyberAI Scholarship for Service program for cybersecurity and AI training and federal workforce placement (August 2026–July 2029, CFDA 47.076), and a $430,684 Major Research Instrumentation award for a mobile laser scanning system for 3D research in dryland and Arctic environments (August 2026–July 2029, Integrative Activities, CFDA 47.083). The National Cancer Institute awarded UTEP $573,746 for research on N6-methyladenosine modification in estrogen receptor activation and breast cancer progression (September 2026–August 2031, CFDA 93.396). The National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research funded a $250,000 efficacy trial on telerehabilitation for stroke survivors in the El Paso medically underserved area (September 2025–August 2028, CFDA 93.433). The Federal Highway Administration provided a $663,376 grant for a data-driven safety roadmap to reduce fatalities among vulnerable road users in El Paso (September 2025–September 2028, Safe Streets and Roads for All, CFDA 20.939). UTEP also received a $600,000 Department of Agriculture cooperative agreement for development and testing of new methods for permafrost tundra characterization (July 2024–August 2028, Soil Survey Federal Grant Program, CFDA 10.903).

Customer concentration is broad but moderately skewed toward research. The top five funding agencies by award count account for 42 percent of awards and include the National Science Foundation (291 awards, $3,000 combined potential value across the research and education portfolio), the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (130 awards), NASA Shared Services Center (83 awards, $19.6 million), the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education (60 awards), and the Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health (48 awards, $453,000). When ranked by potential value (53 percent coverage), NASA Shared Services Center leads with $19.6 million across 83 awards, followed by the Army Materiel Command Research Development and Engineering Command ($15.2 million across 45 awards), the Air Force Materiel Command Research Laboratory ($602,000 across 24 awards), NIH ($453,000 across 48 awards), and NSF ($3,000 across 291 awards). The divergence reflects UTEP's role as a research institution generating many small NSF education and workforce grants alongside larger, longer-duration contracts with defense and aerospace agencies.

Vehicle position is modest. UTEP holds delivery order positions under five indefinite-delivery contracts, with the most active being contract W911QX15D0011 (13 task orders, $1.9 million combined potential value), followed by contract F0160088D0044 (10 task orders, $26,000), contract W911QX08D0001 (5 task orders, $1.6 million), and contract W911QX20D0002 (3 task orders, $2.6 million). These are primarily Army engineering and research vehicles, consistent with UTEP's applied research and training capabilities.

Activity has remained steady but shows recent deceleration. Awards per year ran at 105 in 2023 and 117 in 2024 but dropped to 51 in 2025 and 29 in 2026, suggesting a slowdown in new obligations or a lag in source data capture at the date of this report. Seventy-two awards (combined potential value $694,000) are scheduled to reach ultimate completion within the next 24 months, representing recompete exposure.

UTEP operates primarily as a prime recipient and contractor (90 percent of awards) and secondarily as a subcontractor. Service Contract Inventory (SCI) data capture five SCI records spanning FY2022–FY2025, all in a subcontractor role, with minimal FTE trajectory (2.4 FTEs in FY2022, declining to 0.0 in FY2024 and FY2025), indicating that UTEP's federal service engagement as a named sub is small relative to its overall grant and research contract footprint. Named sub-award work includes participation as a subcontractor to Battelle Memorial Institute on Arctic Research Support and Logistics Services, to Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies on national security campus management and operations research, and to prime contractors on defense applications of remote sensing and microelectronics manufacturing development projects.

UTEP's federal grant footprint as a prime recipient spans the National Science Foundation (education, research, workforce development), NASA (science and technology development), the National Institutes of Health (biomedical research), the Department of Education (student support, curriculum development), the Department of the Army (materials science, robotics), the Federal Highway Administration (transportation safety), the Department of Agriculture (soil science, environmental management), the National Endowment for the Humanities (education and cultural programming), and the National Endowment for the Arts. The institution also partners extensively as a sub-recipient on larger grants led by peer research universities and government laboratories, contributing specialized expertise in advanced manufacturing, computational modeling, geophysics, and environmental science to multi-institution collaborative teams.