Trump’s HBCU order is an opportunity to think big
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April announcing the intent of the White House to “promote excellence and innovation at historically black colleges and universities.” The EO declares that it is the policy of the administration to support HBCUs in goals such as “advancing America’s full potential” and “obtaining equal opportunities for participation in Federal programs” to make “our Nation more globally competitive.” The signing of the EO is an opportunity for HBCU leadership to “think big” about the relationship between the federal government and the HBCU research and development enterprise.
The emerging great power competition between China, Russia and the United States is shaping up to be a race for technological dominance. Data from researchers at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology shows that the United States is third among nations that produce post-secondary STEM graduates, behind China and India, with Russia just behind the United States. This global race for technological dominance is a race for talent. In addition to maintaining the highest quality STEM talent, the United States will need to grow its quantity of STEM talent significantly during this next decisive decade of great power competition.
In terms of global competitiveness, providing talent and technology that allows America to stay ahead of its adversaries is the ultimate test of merit for the contribution of HBCUs.
The Trump administration EO provides a growth opportunity for U.S. talent pipelines by calling upon federal agency heads, private-sector employers, educational associations, philanthropic organizations, and other partners to increase the capacity of HBCUs to provide the highest quality education to an increasing number of students. A series of initiatives are outlined in the EO including providing professional development opportunities for HBCU students to help build America’s workforce in technology and other high-growth industries, promoting centers of academic research and program excellence at HBCUs and collaborating with agencies to improve their competitiveness for federal R&D funding.
HBCUs are conducting more than $500M in federally-funded R&D and producing hundreds of Ph.D. scholars each year. There are several big box federal R&D models that have been largely inaccessible to the HBCU R&D enterprise in the past. Leveraging these can provide a credible path for HBCUs to achieve the goals of the Trump administration EO.
For example, university-affiliated research centers were established in the after World War II to access university facilities and talent to maintain core technical capability for the nation, without conflict of interest or competing with for-profit industry. In 2021, the nation’s 14 UARCs received nearly $3.2B in funding from across the federal government. In 2023, the U.S. Air Force established its first-ever UARC, the nation’s 15th, competitively selecting a consortium of nine HBCUs led by Howard University to advance “tactical autonomy.” This new Air Force UARC is expected to significantly expand the capacity to produce U.S. talent in a critical technology area by establishing networks within the HBCU R&D enterprise focused on core technical competency to meet long-term national security objectives.
Other federal models not yet instituted at HBCUs could yield greater return for the National initiatives for HBCUs outlined in Trump’s recent EO.
Much like UARCs, federally funded research and development centers are federally funded and established to maintain long-term relationships to deliver core technical capability for the federal government. The main difference between UARCs and FFRDCs is that UARCs must be affiliated with a university and are allowed to compete for public and private R&D contracts. Conversely, while FFRDCs may have university affiliation, they are not required to; and they must be not-for-profit and have restrictions on competing with private industry. Several FFRDCs, across multiple federal agencies, are run by universities or university consortiums. An FFRDC run by a consortium of HBCUs focused on a critical technology area for national security would fulfill objectives outlined in the EO to enhance HBCUs’ capabilities by promoting “centers of academic research and program excellence at HBCUs.”
A partnership intermediary agreement serves as a formal mechanism that enables federal agencies to leverage non-profit partnerships for strategic engagement with academia and private industry to advance, develop, and transition emerging technologies. This acquisition vehicle facilitates cooperative activities including technical workshops, collaborative research initiatives, and knowledge exchange forums to expedite technology transfer and licensing processes. By using PIAs to establish strategic partnerships, federal agencies can meet EO objectives to foster public-private partnerships. Ensuring that cutting-edge technologies developed within the HBCU R&D enterprise are successfully transitioned to capability not only fulfills objectives of the EO, but also can accelerate efforts already underway to expand commercialization of HBCU R&D.
Other Transactional authorities represent alternative contractual instruments that operate outside the traditional federal acquisition framework of standard procurement contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements. These versatile acquisition tools encompass research OTs, which facilitate the procurement of cutting-edge R&D activities to advance breakthrough technologies, and prototype OTs, which enable the acquisition of prototypes and demonstration models, with the authority to establish follow-on production contracts. In particular, research OTAs enable federal agencies to leverage the capacity of the HBCU R&D enterprise to advance critical objectives outlined in the EO.
While a series of federal models exist for the Trump administration to utilize in meeting the timely goals set in the EO on HBCUs, the question of funding always arises. Yet another federal authority exists that could provide a near-term bridge over expected reductions in federal. Collaborative research and development agreements were established by the federal government for collaboration with public and private partners under in-kind support. CRADAs have been used widely in the Department of Defense to establish technology development public and private sector partnerships. Building on existing CRADA relationships and rapidly establishing new focused agreements could help to accelerate implementation of FFRDC, PIA or OTA models to achieve objectives of the EO.
In response to the guidance of Trump’s EO, HBCU leaders, federal agency heads and Congress should take this opportunity to solidify the HBCU R&D enterprise as a national asset. The EO provides a platform to initiate a host of big box federal models to amplify HBCU excellence and innovation. These institutions will be critical to help deliver technology and talent essential to building the “arsenal of democracy” and realizing this administration’s goal of “peace through strength.” The scale and pace of the global strategic competition that lies ahead for the United States demands that this work begin now.
