The University Of Texas At El Paso

The University of Texas At El Paso, a public Carnegie Classification R1 research institution and Hispanic-serving university headquartered in El Paso, Texas, operates as a federal prime recipient and research grant awardee across 176 distinct agencies, with 91 percent of its recent awards executed as prime (rather than subcontractor) and a portfolio spanning research, education, and technical services delivered to civilian and defense customers nationwide and internationally.

UTEP functions primarily as a recipient of federal grants and cooperative agreements rather than as a federal contractor in the traditional sense. The institution's award footprint reflects its mission as an emergent research university: 1,450 total awards over the source period, with 1,317 prime awards spanning research grants, cooperative agreements, and purchase orders. The portfolio demonstrates significant concentration in federal research funding. The top five funding agencies account for 42 percent of awards by count: the National Science Foundation leads with 290 awards (though with minimal reported potential value in the source data); the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration with 130 awards; NASA's Shared Services Center with 82 awards valued at $19.6 million combined; the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education with 60 awards; and the National Institutes of Health with 48 awards valued at $453 thousand combined. By potential value, however, NASA Shared Services Center anchors the portfolio at $19.6 million, followed by the Department of the Army Materiel Command Research Development and Engineering Command at $15.2 million across 45 awards, and the Department of the Air Force at $602 thousand across 23 awards.

UTEP's capability profile centers on academic research and development across multiple STEM and social science disciplines: advanced manufacturing and additive manufacturing for aerospace propulsion (including Inconel 718 studies and silicon oxycarbide composite research for NASA); materials science and chemistry (hydrogen fuel cells, quantum computing, rare earth element separation); geophysics and dryland ecosystem research; neuroscience and biomedical research addressing health disparities in Hispanic populations; computer science and cybersecurity; and K-12 and higher education curriculum development and workforce training. Representative prime awards include a $55 thousand purchase order from NASA for additive manufacturing angled walls and laser system characterization (March 2026, sole source); a $138.7 thousand project grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for research on neurotoxic mechanisms of per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds (June 2026); a $715.3 thousand NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant for acquisition of a multi-material vat photopolymerization 3D printer (April 2026); a $589.7 thousand NSF Geosciences grant for deep learning inversion for geophysical imaging (January 2026); a $663.4 thousand Federal Highway Administration Safe Streets and Roads for All grant for data-driven pedestrian safety in El Paso (September 2025); a $492.1 thousand NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure CAREER award for critical infrastructure resiliency through provenance frameworks (June 2023); and a $2.99 million NSF Biological Sciences grant for research training in extreme dryland environments (September 2023). Recent Army task orders include a $322.7 thousand delivery order under contract W911QX20D0002 for cyber DevOps and senior capstone support at White Sands Missile Range (July 2023).

UTEP also holds a position on a multi-billion-dollar Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract awarded by the Missile Defense Agency on December 29, 2025, for the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program, with a ceiling of $151 billion and completion date of December 28, 2035. This is a full-and-open multiple-award IDIQ supporting research, development, prototyping, systems engineering, weapon design, production, and test and evaluation across classified and unclassified programs. An initial delivery order for SHIELD Initial Order was placed on the same date with a $500 ceiling value.

UTEP's teaming posture reflects its role as an academic institution rather than a traditional contractor. It operates predominantly as a prime recipient (91 percent of awards), with minimal subcontractor engagement captured in the Service Contract Inventory dataset (3 SCI records across FY2022–FY2024, yielding roughly 2.4 FTEs in FY2022 and 0.0 FTEs in FY2024 as named subs). When UTEP subcontracts, it does so within grant and cooperative agreement structures rather than service contracts: recent sub-awards include research collaborations with Purdue University on microelectronics workforce development (September 2024), with Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies on the National Security Campus management and operations (November and August 2024), with Battelle Memorial Institute on Arctic research logistics (February 2025), and with institutions including University of California Santa Barbara, Cornell University, UC Irvine, and George Washington University on collaborative research projects in particle flows, synchrotron X-ray imaging, stroke rehabilitation, and NLRP3 inhibitor development.

The institution's federal grant portfolio spans civilian research agencies (NSF, NIH, NASA, DOE, NOAA, EPA), defense agencies (Army, Air Force, Missile Defense Agency), and education agencies (Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services). Activity has averaged roughly 93 awards per year over the past five years (2022–2024), with 2025 showing 52 awards and 2026 (partial year) showing 11 awards. Eighty awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, with combined potential value of $344 thousand.