Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University, doing business as Babcock School of Business, is a private non-profit research institution that acts as a prime recipient on federal research grants spanning life sciences, physical sciences, engineering, and education—with a modest footprint as a subcontractor on collaborative multi-institutional grants. The institution does not compete for federal service contracts or product procurements; its federal footprint is entirely grant-funded research.

Wake Forest University is headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and operates under the parent entity The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, doing business as Atrium Health. The university operates across multiple schools and departments with research capability spanning biological sciences, chemistry, engineering, medical research, physics, mathematics, computer science, and social sciences. Recent awards carry no set-aside designation; the institution competes on scientific and technical merit in full-and-open federal research funding.

Federal grant activity centers on the National Science Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health, with secondary engagement from NASA, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense. Across 519 awards in the source data (first recorded in 1980), 87% are prime grants; 13% are sub-awards under collaborative grants led by peer institutions. The top five funding agencies by award count cover 47% of recent awards: NSF leads with 97 awards, followed by the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (48 awards, $6.4 million combined potential value), the Army (37 awards), NIH (35 awards), and the Navy (28 awards). By potential value, NIH's National Heart Lung and Blood Institute dominates the top tier at $35.7 million across 18 awards, but NIH programs span cardiology, infectious disease, aging, child health, general medical sciences, arthritis, allergy, and dental research.

Representative recent grant work includes a $687,371 NSF CAREER award (March 2026–February 2031) for development of pi-conjugated allene polymers as smart materials responsive to chemical signals; a $649,997 USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant (February 2026–February 2031) investigating heat stress impacts on tomato plant reproduction through flavonol antioxidant pathways; a $520,013 NSF CAREER award (July 2025–June 2030) for safety-centered multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithms and benchmarks; a $444,086 NASA grant (August 2025–July 2028) for research aligned with the ROSES (Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences) balanced science program; a $440,001 NSF collaborative award (October 2023–September 2027) to accelerate commercial readiness of organic semiconductor systems; and a $501,329 NSF CAREER award (October 2023–September 2028) developing a "Neuron Twin" computational system for Alzheimer's disease prediction using deep learning and multiscale modeling. The institution also delivers tuition and fees services under Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery delivery orders (most recently $32,473.50 in August 2024 and $65,462.50 in January 2024).

Research spans from fundamental investigations in quantum materials, black hole physics, and number theory to applied work in renewable energy grid stability, explainable artificial intelligence for medical imaging, and clinical trials for osteoarthritis prevention and pain management. Grant recipients include faculty from biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and social sciences departments, with substantial infrastructure investments in live-cell fluorescent imaging systems and support for undergraduate and graduate student research training.

Sub-award activity shows Wake Forest as a collaborator on multi-site clinical trials and research initiatives led by peer institutions including the University of Florida, Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland Baltimore, New York University, Cornell Weill Medical College, and Ohio State University. Sub-award roles include data coordination, histological analysis, cardiovascular pathology interpretation, clinic recruitment and quality improvement, statistical analysis of multi-modal data (neuroimaging, genetic, clinical), and computational chemistry support. Recent sub-awards (2024–2026) include roles on a data coordinating center for the PREVENTABLE lipid-lowering and heart failure trial, a mobility and peripheral artery disease trial, COVID-19 research, and several infectious disease and oncology consortia.

Activity has remained steady: 23 awards in 2022, 26 in 2023, peaking at 38 in 2024, then moderating to 25 in 2025 and 9 through April 2026. Combined potential value across all awards in the source is $50.3 million; notably, obligated dollars total $225.5 million—449% of potential value—reflecting the multi-year nature of research grants and accumulated funding across the institution's grant portfolio. Nineteen awards are scheduled to reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, carrying combined potential value of $224 thousand and representing routine research grant expirations rather than material recompete exposure. The institution's research mission and non-profit status mean federal revenue is reinvested in research operations, faculty support, and student training rather than private shareholder return.