Purdue honors researchers with Seed for Success Acorn Awards

During a Nov. 19 ceremony, Purdue honored 231 researchers across 100 research projects with the university’s prestigious Seed for Success Acorn Awards.

The annual event recognizes research projects — and the Purdue principal investigators and co-investigators who lead them — that were awarded external research funding of $1 million or more for a single proposal. This year’s honorees included 74 first-time award recipients.

“It’s a significant milestone to be awarded $1 million in funding,” said Dan DeLaurentis, Purdue’s executive vice president for research. “Purdue’s robust and growing research is a testament to the innovation and impact of our researchers, as evidenced by Purdue’s rising number of transformative partnerships.”

In fiscal year 2025, Purdue’s research proposals reached a new record of $3.1 billion in submissions, up 5% from the previous year. Purdue also set a new research expenditure benchmark, spending a record of over $1 billion on research and development. Owing to strong award funding levels across all sources, overall research expenditures for fiscal 2025 rose 12% over the previous fiscal year and increased almost 40% over the past three years.

Purdue also signed 10 new or renewed master research agreements so far in 2025 alone, bringing the active roster to a record 63 agreements. Major research collaborations include critical fields such as defense and aerospace, pharmaceutical manufacturing, life sciences, semiconductors, and AI.

A full list of award recipients is available at the Seed for Success Acorn Awards webpage.