NIH Service Contracts

NIH is the largest biomedical research agency in the world and has historically spent several billion dollars each year on service contracts to support its operations. A service contract is a contract that directly engages the time and effort of a contractor whose primary purpose is to perform an identifiable task(s). Past audits and evaluations have found that Federal contracts reviewed often do not have well-developed requirements for the work and are not monitored well for performance. This study will assess a sample FYs 2023 and 2024 NIH performance-based service contracts to determine whether the services, deliverables, and metrics laid out in the statement of work are clear and measurable. This study will also assess whether gaps existed in NIH performance monitoring for the sampled contracts.

Announced or Revised	Agency	Title	Component	Report Number(s)	Expected Issue Date (FY)
June 2025	NIH	NIH Service Contracts	Office of Evaluation and Inspections	OEI-01-25-00290	2026