State Budget Supports Purdue and Indiana University Bioscience Partnership
A late-night, special session of the Indiana State Legislature successfully passed the final version of the state budget on June 30th, just hours before the July 1 deadline. Included in the budget was funding at a level of $10 million per year for the Indiana Innovation Alliance.
The Indiana Innovation Alliance (IIA) is a historic partnership in which Purdue and Indiana universities are called to bring together Indiana's research universities, biomedical and biotechnology firms, health and life sciences organizations, local economic development organizations, and state government to grow the state's bioscience economy and increase the competitiveness of Indiana's work force. The IIA will initially focus on two key strategic initiatives:
(1) Expanding medical education and technical work force development, as well as health-care innovation by growing IU's statewide medical education network and Purdue's biomedical engineering education and Healthcare Technical Assistance programs; and
(2) Developing strong core research capabilities in emerging technology areas and making them available to university and corporate researchers alike for state-of-the-art health and bioscience research services, making Indiana a "hotspot" for research-intensive development.
Initially the core research capabilities of the IIA will include microscopic to whole-body advanced imaging; nanotechnology, device fabrication and advanced analytics; informatics and omics; and model systems (preclinical and computational). These capabilities will be available to any public or private university research group in Indiana and to corporate sector researchers. The financial support provided by the Alliance will make it possible for researchers and research managers to use these facilities at reasonable cost, making Indiana highly attractive as a "place to go" for companies and scientists that need these capabilities to develop scientific solutions that can be commercialized and thus potentially advance the state economically.
Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering has a long history of supporting Indiana's bio-based industries via the education of skilled graduates and collaborative research and technology transfer. The IIA will support the expansion of these educational programs to train company-based engineers and scientists in the latest bioengineering and biotechnology techniques and approaches. Educational offerings will be a component of a professional master’s degree program with a dedicated emphasis on the use of distance-learning to ensure ease of access and broad workforce participation.
Indiana is a national leader in the number and concentration of bio-economy jobs. This concentration, combined with world-class university research capabilities in the biosciences, gives Indiana an advantage over many states that we can use to improve our competitive position in economic development.
Thanks to all of the Weldon School’s partners for their support of the IIA. It is making a difference. We at the Weldon School look forward to working with the Indiana bioscience community to begin fulfilling the goals of the IIA and thereby impacting the lives of Hoosiers for many years to come.