Universities & research institutes
Which universities and research institutes win federal contracts in Colorado?
Universities and research institutes winning federal contracts in Colorado, from public award data.
What these numbers include, and what they don't
- Federal contracts only. Research grants, cooperative agreements and other federal assistance are not included. For most universities, grants are the large majority of federal research funding, so these totals are much smaller than an institution's total federal research funding. They are not wrong; they measure contracts.
- Work in Colorado. A prime contract counts when the federal agency recorded Colorado as the place of performance. A subcontract counts when the subcontractor is based in Colorado.
- Institutions based in other states are listed when an agency recorded Colorado as the place of performance. Usually that is a federal office in Colorado buying lab or research services, such as USDA's animal-health office in Fort Collins, the U.S. Geological Survey and Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, or the federal rail test center in Pueblo. The work itself may be done at the institution's own lab; the place of performance is what the agency entered.
- Who is included: recipients that USAspending.gov classifies as higher education (public, private or for-profit), and nonprofits whose contracts are mostly research and development. “Based in” is the address on the institution's USAspending.gov recipient profile.
- Ranked here, not on the contractor leaderboards. Universities and research institutes are ranked on this page by contract dollars. They don't appear on the momentum leaderboard, movers, new entrants or fastest-growing lists, which rank companies. Their own pages keep all their numbers.
- Source: USAspending.gov contract awards, 12 months to Jul 2, 2026. Every figure links to the institution's page and its source records. See the methodology.
Rankings are on the way
This page fills in after the first weekly data load. Read the methodology.
Questions about this list
Why is a university's total lower than its federal research funding?
This page counts federal contracts only. Most federal research money reaches universities as grants and cooperative agreements, which are not included here (or anywhere on this site). So a university with hundreds of millions in federal research funding may show a much smaller contract total. The contract numbers themselves come straight from USAspending.gov.
Why is a university from another state on a Colorado list?
A prime contract counts when the federal agency recorded Colorado as the place of performance. Several federal science offices are in Colorado (for example in Fort Collins, Denver and Pueblo) and buy lab or research services from universities elsewhere. The agency often records its own Colorado location, even when the work is done at the university’s lab.
Why aren't universities and research institutes on the main leaderboard?
The leaderboards rank companies competing for federal contracts. Universities and research institutes are ranked separately, here, by contract dollars, and government bodies (such as the State of Colorado) are not ranked at all. All of them keep their own pages with their full numbers.
How do you decide who is a university or research institute?
From USAspending.gov: an institution counts as a university when its recipient profile lists it as higher education (public, private or for-profit). A nonprofit counts as a research institute when most of its contract dollars are for research and development. The classification is automatic and comes only from public data; email us if one looks wrong.
How often is this updated?
Weekly, with the rest of the site. The 12-month window ends on the latest date for which federal contract data is complete (defense data is published about 90 days late).
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