Wayne State University

Wayne State University's Sponsored Project Administration Division, doing business as Wayne State University Physician Group, is a tax-exempt, non-profit public research institution based in Detroit, Michigan that competes in full-and-open federal markets as a prime recipient of research grants and prime contractor on service delivery and research support delivery orders, with no set-aside designations. The institution holds a single-award Basic Ordering Agreement with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (Department of Defense / Department of Veterans Affairs) running through May 31, 2035, which frames flexible task-order issuance for laboratory animal resources, veterinarian services, tuition, and research support to VA Veterans Integrated Service Network 10.

Wayne State's federal footprint is dominated by research grants across the life sciences, biomedical research, and environmental health. The university serves as prime recipient on over 2,400 awards spanning federal research grants (project grants, cooperative agreements, R61/R33 mechanisms, and CAREER awards), delivery orders under the VA BOA for laboratory animal and veterinary services, and tuition-reimbursement orders. Recent representative prime grants include $1.341 billion from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for translating phage-antibiotic synergy to combat multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (award date February 2026, performance through January 2031), $1.137 million from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for skeletal muscle phosphoproteome and O-GlcNAc glycoproteome research (award date September 2026, performance through April 2031), and $2.147 billion from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for gestational e-cigarette vaping-induced neuronal adaptations research (award date June 2026, performance through May 2030). The institution also received a $16 million Research Infrastructure Programs award from the NIH Office of the Director in September 2025 to establish the Wayne State University Advanced Technology Center, consolidating three core facilities (Microscopy, Imaging and Cytometry Resources; Proteomic; and Lipidomic) into a single 10,425-square-foot center on the School of Medicine campus.

Customer concentration is heavily weighted toward the National Institutes of Health and its subordinate institutes. The top five funding agencies account for 41% of recent awards by count; by potential value, the National Cancer Institute alone represents $1.23 billion (76% of the combined potential value across all awards). The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases round out the value-weighted top five. The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Service Network 10, through the VA BOA vehicle, accounts for 291 awards with combined potential value of $72.8 million, reflecting routine delivery orders for laboratory animal resources and veterinary services. Wayne State operates as a subrecipient on federal grants managed by peer research institutions including Case Western Reserve University, University of Michigan, Duke University, University of Florida, and the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, performing specialized research functions including comparative studies of phage-antibiotic mechanisms, transcriptomic analysis, and mechanistic fingerprinting of drug candidates.

The university's VA BOA vehicle (five indefinite delivery contracts under VA25 series identifiers) anchors the service delivery footprint, with 246 total task orders carrying combined potential value of approximately $6.8 million for laboratory animal resource provision, veterinary services, tuition reimbursement, and research support. Across SCI-reportable service contracts in fiscal years 2022–2024, Wayne State invoiced $22.7 million to the federal government, with FY2023 peak invoicing of $11.9 million. On those SCI-reportable prime contracts, median government-paid hourly rates ran around $260.95/hr, with senior labor pricing through $343.52/hr; however, the university subcontracted an average of 67% of total contractor hours, suggesting reliance on institutional partnerships and specialized sub-recipients for delivery of technical research and analytical services rather than direct in-house staffing. The university engages approximately 71 named subcontractors across its SCI-reportable prime service contracts, positioning it as a research management entity that leverages external specialized expertise rather than a primary labor provider.

Research activity has remained robust with 2,929 total awards in the source dataset spanning 60 years. Award volume peaked at 229 in 2024 but declined to 81 in 2025 and 2 in 2027 (as of the source timestamp in October 2026), reflecting the lag between award funding and data reporting in the source system. One hundred fifty-nine awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $365 thousand, representing minimal near-term recompete exposure; however, the university's large grant portfolio (particularly R01 and R21 mechanisms from NIH institutes with standard three- to five-year performance periods) generates continuous funding cycles. The university does not hold positions on government-wide IDIQs or GWACs; its prime vehicle portfolio is dominated by direct grants and the single VA BOA. Wayne State competes across full-and-open federal research funding mechanisms and does not pursue set-aside contract vehicles.