Who buys NAICS 541715 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology)) work, who wins it, and what's open right now — from FY2026 USAspending awards and live SAM.gov solicitations.
Contract data as of Oct 18, 2026 (USAspending) · recent coverage verified weekly
| Quarter | Awards | Obligated | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 FY2026 | 4,779 | $2.0B | — |
| Q2 FY2026 | 1,547 | $2.2B | +7% |
| Q3 FY2026 | 470 | $3.9B | +82% |
| Q4 FY2026 · partial | 1,054 | $1.2B | -68% |
Federal fiscal quarters (Q1 = Oct–Dec). Awards are counted in the quarter they start; obligations are the award's obligated amount. The Department of Defense publishes contract awards to USAspending with a 90-day delay, so Q4 FY2026 is still missing most DoD awards (DoD is 73% of this market's dollars) — treat that quarter as incomplete, not as a spending decline.
| # | Contractor | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RTX CORP | $1.8B | 19.1% |
| 2 | LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP | $1.4B | 14.5% |
| 3 | THE MITRE CORPORATION | $867.0M | 9.2% |
| 4 | CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $450.6M | 4.8% |
| 5 | SURATECH LLC | $304.7M | 3.2% |
| 6 | THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY LLC | $282.1M | 3.0% |
| 7 | INTUITIVE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION | $197.0M | 2.1% |
| 8 | L3HARRIS TECHNOLOGIES, INC | $180.9M | 1.9% |
| 9 | CASTELION CORPORATION | $155.0M | 1.7% |
| 10 | THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY | $123.6M | 1.3% |
Registrations are rolled up to their corporate parent (USAspending parent UEI), so a company with several SAM registrations ranks once.
| Agency | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | $6.8B | 72.6% |
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | $1.1B | 11.7% |
| Department of Energy | $340.5M | 3.6% |
| Department of Health and Human Services | $275.2M | 2.9% |
| Department of Homeland Security | $232.1M | 2.5% |
| General Services Administration | $230.5M | 2.5% |
| Department of Transportation | $101.6M | 1.1% |
| Department of Commerce | $67.2M | 0.7% |
| Department of the Interior | $58.5M | 0.6% |
| Department of Agriculture | $47.0M | 0.5% |
| Set-aside type | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Small business set-aside | $1.0B | 39.7% |
| 8(a) | $65.0M | 2.5% |
| SDVOSB | $27.2M | 1.1% |
| WOSB / EDWOSB | $12.7M | 0.5% |
| HUBZone | $3K | 0.0% |
| Other (Indian economic enterprise, veteran, …) | $211K | 0.0% |
| No set-aside (full & open) | $1.4B | 56.2% |
Share of obligations on awards whose set-aside type is recorded — 27% of this market's dollars. Most USAspending bulk-archive records leave the field blank, so blank awards are excluded rather than counted as full & open.
Showing the 10 most recently posted of 917. Links open the notice on SAM.gov.
Source: USAspending.gov contract awards (prime awards with a start date from Oct 1, 2025 through Sep 30, 2026), SAM.gov contract opportunities, and SBA size standards. Recompetes are contracts whose final end date — options included — falls in the next 12 months. Figures are recomputed when a new USAspending load lands. See our data sources.