Winston-Salem State University

Winston-Salem State University, a publicly controlled historically Black college and university headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a federal grant recipient focused on STEM research, STEM education innovation, and institutional capacity-building across multiple federal agencies and programs. The university operates as a prime grant recipient on 208 of 215 awards in the source portfolio (97%), with a small subrecipient footprint (7 sub-awards, 3%). WSSU has no federal prime contracting activity; all work flows through federal grant awards and sub-grant arrangements with other research institutions.

WSSU's federal funding sources are concentrated in research and education grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The National Science Foundation anchors the portfolio with 49 awards across multiple programs, followed by the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education (23 awards) and HRSA (18 awards). The top five funding agencies account for 53% of the award count. Recent concrete work includes a $400,000 NSF Targeted Infusion Project (CFDA 47.076) awarded August 2025 supporting integration of organic synthesis research and green chemistry into the chemistry curriculum through undergraduate research and peer mentoring; a $446,199 cooperative agreement from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (CFDA 93.286) effective August 2025 developing a multimodal biosensor platform to detect multiple hormone biomarkers using nanomaterials and quantum sensing; a $3.99 million HUD cooperative agreement (CFDA 14.506) awarded October 2024 establishing a research consortium to address rural housing policy for marginalized populations in coastal regions, the Navajo Nation, and Guam; and a $1.18 million Department of Education grant (CFDA 84.031) under the Strengthening HBCUs program to support institutional management and academic quality enhancement.

WSSU's capability portfolio centers on federally funded STEM research and STEM education innovation. The university conducts fundamental and applied research in quantum information science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, biomedical imaging, computational genomics, organic chemistry synthesis, exercise physiology, graph theory mathematics, and environmental toxicology. On the education side, WSSU develops and implements evidence-based curriculum enhancements—esports-infused computer science, organic synthesis research integration, green chemistry, data analytics certification for non-computing majors, quantum computing workforce training, and virtual training in vocational rehabilitation and mental health counseling. The university also manages institutional strengthening initiatives including research administration capacity-building, faculty mentoring programs, and undergraduate research pipeline development targeting underrepresented groups in STEM.

Activity has grown modestly over the past five years—from 6 awards in 2022 to a peak of 17 in 2024, with 7 awards in 2025 and 2 new awards in 2026. Seventeen awards (combined potential value $296 thousand) face ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, presenting recompete opportunity. The combined dollars obligated across the portfolio ($359.9 million) far exceed the combined potential value ($1.1 million) because the source data treats obligated federal funding on multi-year grants as a single line and captures cumulative historical obligation; this is characteristic of university grant portfolios with multi-year awards.

In its sub-recipient role, WSSU partners with peer HBCUs and research universities. Recent sub-grant work includes participation in NSF-funded collaborative partnerships: the GRADS-4C (Genomic Research and Data Science Center for Computation and Cloud Computing) sub-award from North Carolina A&T State University (October 2024) to serve as a primary site for North Carolina's cloud-based interdisciplinary education training hub in computational genomics, data sciences, and cloud computing; a sub-award from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (August 2024) on a physical activity and health research project to provide leadership, curriculum development, recruitment, and data collection; a sub-award from Michigan State University (May 2024) on the Culturally Embedded Science Education (CESE) intervention to lead professional learning, data collection, and inter-university knowledge exchange; and a sub-award from North Carolina A&T on research capacity and STEM broadening participation (April 2024). Wake Forest University Health Sciences and High Point University also direct sub-awards to WSSU for collaborative research initiatives. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (April 2025) awarded a sub-grant to WSSU to pilot an Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) program at a North Carolina HBCU.

WSSU competes exclusively in full-and-open federal grant competitions; no set-aside designations apply to its portfolio. The university's federal footprint is research institution and HBCU capacity-building focused, not commercial service or supply contracting, and reflects its mission as a four-year public HBCU serving approximately 4,400 undergraduate students with federal investment in STEM research, faculty development, and student pipeline strengthening.