Research and experimental development in social sciences and humanities. Find active federal and state social sciences and humanities r&d contracts — AI-scored against your profile across SAM.gov and 200+ portals.
Annual federal spending under NAICS 541720 exceeds $1.5 billion, driven primarily by NSF, NIH, DOE, and state education agencies. Contracts are often awarded as single-solicitation grants or cooperative agreements, with IDIQs and BPAs used for recurring program evaluations and policy research. Demand spikes around major legislative initiatives (e.g., education reform, energy policy) and is highly competitive, with an average of 8–12 offers per solicitation. Work is typically structured as cost-reimbursement or firm-fixed-price task orders, with a strong emphasis on methodological rigor and past performance.
These agencies are the largest buyers of social sciences and humanities r&d services and products in the federal government. Each awards contracts under NAICS 541720 regularly — build relationships with their small business offices first.
To win, focus on demonstrating subject-matter expertise through a strong team of principal investigators and a clear research methodology. Most contracts are set aside for small businesses via 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB preferences. The single highest-leverage move is to build a relationship with the program officer at your target agency at least six months before the RFP drops—social science R&D buyers value trusted advisors over low price.
Work is commonly bought via GSA Professional Services Schedule (PSS) under SIN 541720, agency-specific IDIQs (e.g., NSF's Cooperative Agreement, NIH's R01/R03), and 8(a) STARS III for set-aside task orders. Evaluation is best-value, heavily weighting technical approach (40–50%), past performance (30%), and price (20–30%). LPTA is rare except for low-complexity data collection.
Not typically. Most social science R&D work is unclassified, but some DOE and NIH contracts may require a Public Trust clearance or, rarely, a Secret clearance for sensitive policy research.
Award sizes vary widely: small task orders can be $50,000–$250,000, while multi-year IDIQs or cooperative agreements often range from $1 million to $10 million. The median award is around $500,000.
Yes, subcontracting to universities is common and often expected, especially for NSF and NIH grants. The prime contractor typically manages the project, while the university provides academic expertise and research infrastructure.
No specific certifications are required, but demonstrated human subjects protection training (e.g., CITI) and Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval are often mandatory for research involving human participants.
It is highly competitive. For NIH and NSF solicitations, success rates can be below 20%. However, small business set-asides (especially 8(a) and HUBZone) significantly improve odds, with some set-aside competitions receiving only 3–5 bids.