Life and health sciences faculty summit to chart next major investment at Purdue

The Office of Research and the Office of the Provost have announced plans for a Life and Health Sciences Summit on Oct. 19 for faculty to explore and define opportunities to deepen Purdue’s leadership in these fields.

Ahead of the summit, faculty teams are invited to submit proposals for research topics where Purdue can lead nationally. Funding from a pool of up to $2 million is set aside as part of the university’s seed investment to catalyze such faculty pursuits.

The summit will feature presentations and discussions of four to six research areas, broadly defined in the life and health sciences and in “one health” across human, plant and animal health, that will be selected from proposals made by faculty teams. These proposals should leverage Purdue strengths across all colleges and departments. They should also draw upon the institutes and centers in Discovery Park District at Purdue, as well as Purdue University in Indianapolis. Each presentation will focus on impact and on Purdue’s unique strength in this area.  

Purdue faculty are invited to form teams and propose topics to be considered at the summit. Proposals for funding between $250,000 and $500,000 should be sent to bigideasinlifescience@purdue.edu by Sept. 29. Using this template, proposals must address both of following questions:

1. How would this topic produce significant impact and benefit for the world?
2. Why is Purdue uniquely positioned relative to other research universities to be the leading institution in this area?  

The Life and Health Sciences Summit will take place Oct. 19 from 1-5 p.m. in the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121. President Mung Chiang will participate through the entire event. Follow-up actions from this faculty summit will be taken forward jointly by the Office of Research and the Office of the Provost. All faculty and staff interested are welcome to attend, but preregistration is required at Life Sciences Summit.