Purdue surpasses $1B in total research expenditures for the first time

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University set a new research benchmark for fiscal year 2025, receiving resources that were spent on a record of over $1 billion on research, underscoring the university’s growing role as a national leader in critical fields such as life sciences, computing technologies, advanced manufacturing and AI.

Owing to strong award funding levels across all sources, overall research expenditures for the fiscal year that ended June 30 rose 12% over the previous fiscal year and increased almost 40% over the past three years.

The $1 billion fiscal 2025 figure includes record levels from all funding categories including federal and industry research funding as reported two months ago, as well as other sources such as the state, nonprofits, foundations, philanthropic organizations and Purdue institutional support. Together they power Purdue’s research and development mission for the main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis.

“Purdue’s total research expenditure crossing the $1 billion mark this year underscores the strength of Purdue as a top-tier research university and a research partner with both industry and government,” President Mung Chiang said. “This milestone also reflects again the excellence at scale of the impactful research conducted by our faculty, staff and students.”

Beyond the laboratory, research expenditures help equip students — undergraduate and graduate — with experiential learning that drives talent development and stimulates economic growth, which reverberates through the community, state and nation.

Purdue submits research expenditures annually to the National Science Foundation in response to the annual Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey. Vetting expenditures for accuracy and consistency across the higher education community, HERD is the accepted standard for measuring research activities across colleges and universities. The national data will all be released later. Even prior to fiscal 2025, Purdue was already ranked among the top universities without a medical school across the U.S., which tends to significantly increase federal research funding through NIH.

Daniel DeLaurentis, Purdue’s executive vice president for research, said that in contrast to many peer institutions among the nation’s top research universities, Purdue research remains robust and continues to grow, fueled in part by a highly diversified portfolio of transformative partnerships.

“While all of higher education faces some headwinds, Purdue researchers continue to be sought out by research sponsors and partners,” DeLaurentis said. “As our public versus private sector funding mix evolves, Purdue is in a very strong position to create new funding opportunities, especially with our industry partnerships and national laboratories.”

DeLaurentis said Purdue maintains an active roster of 60 master research agreements at the end of fiscal 2025 — another record for the university. Ten new or renewed agreements were signed in fiscal 2025 alone.

One such partnership is July’s memorandum of understanding and master research agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory to advance a transformative research partnership focused on national security and cutting-edge technologies.

Other major research collaborations announced this year include:

Pharmaceutical manufacturing

Eli Lilly and Company and Purdue announced in May a significant expansion of their long-standing alliance, with Lilly’s planned investment of up to $250 million in the collaboration over the next eight years. The Lilly-Purdue 360 Initiative, one of the largest ever industry-academic agreements of its kind in the U.S., will seek to accelerate pharmaceutical innovation.

Life sciences

Purdue is also partnering with Elanco Animal Health and the state of Indiana to establish the One Health Innovation District, a globally recognized research innovation district dedicated to optimizing the health of people, animals, plants and the planet through novel interdisciplinary initiatives and industry partnerships. The district will be located near the future Elanco global headquarters on the western edge of the White River in Indianapolis.

Semiconductors and AI

Purdue was named the lead academic SMART USA digital twin center for the newly formed Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins (SMART) USA Institute. As lead, Purdue will receive a portion of $285 million over five years in federal research funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Purdue’s national leadership in microelectronics and semiconductors is a cornerstone of Purdue Computes — a comprehensive initiative that spans computing departments, physical AI, quantum science and semiconductor innovation.

Purdue continued its standing as a top 10 public university in the U.S., coming in at No. 9 in the 2026 QS World University Rankings.

About Purdue University 

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.