Who buys NAICS 541720 (Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities) 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 | 25 | $73.8M | — |
| Q2 FY2026 | 43 | $22.8M | -69% |
| Q3 FY2026 | 31 | $44.1M | +94% |
| Q4 FY2026 · partial | 145 | $167.5M | +280% |
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 17% of this market's dollars) — treat that quarter as incomplete, not as a spending decline.
| # | Contractor | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | THE RAND CORPORATION | $65.2M | 21.2% |
| 2 | MATHEMATICA INC. | $31.1M | 10.1% |
| 3 | FORS MARSH GROUP LLC | $30.4M | 9.9% |
| 4 | THE MITRE CORPORATION | $26.6M | 8.6% |
| 5 | UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED | $18.9M | 6.1% |
| 6 | RESEARCH TRIANGLE INSTITUTE | $16.5M | 5.4% |
| 7 | AMERICAN INSTITUTES FOR RESEARCH IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES | $12.2M | 4.0% |
| 8 | DELOITTE CONSULTING LLP | $10.9M | 3.5% |
| 9 | UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF MARYLAND | $9.5M | 3.1% |
| 10 | WESTAT, INC. | $8.9M | 2.9% |
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 Health and Human Services | $132.5M | 43.0% |
| Department of Defense | $51.4M | 16.7% |
| General Services Administration | $33.6M | 10.9% |
| Department of Commerce | $27.2M | 8.8% |
| Department of Homeland Security | $18.0M | 5.9% |
| Department of Education | $16.0M | 5.2% |
| Department of Veterans Affairs | $12.1M | 3.9% |
| Department of Transportation | $7.9M | 2.6% |
| Department of Agriculture | $3.9M | 1.3% |
| Social Security Administration | $2.9M | 1.0% |
| Set-aside type | Obligated | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Small business set-aside | $17.8M | 45.5% |
| 8(a) | $1.5M | 3.7% |
| SDVOSB | $0 | 0.0% |
| WOSB / EDWOSB | $36K | 0.1% |
| HUBZone | $0 | 0.0% |
| Other (Indian economic enterprise, veteran, …) | $435K | 1.1% |
| No set-aside (full & open) | $19.4M | 49.6% |
Share of obligations on awards whose set-aside type is recorded — 13% 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 20. 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.