Excerpts from an interview with Mitchell E. Daniels, president of Purdue University, Indiana (USA). Daniels was in India in October.

What are the top priorities and objectives of your visit to India?

India is a country of strategic importance to Purdue. The Purdue-India relationship is deep and broad. Approximately 1,900 Indian students are currently enrolled in Purdue and 120 faculty of Indian origin provide instruction and are engaged in world-changing research on campus and with partner institutions in India. Purdue has a strong and growing alumni network in India and increasing numbers of collaborations with corporate and institutional partners. Indeed, Purdue is one of the most international universities in the United States with 9,300 students and faculty from 127 countries. We are the #1 destination for international students pursuing STEM education and the #1 institution for Indian undergraduate students in the US. 

Purdue has had long established relationships with several Indian education institutions. How satisfied are you with their progress? 

Quite satisfied. I will mention one specific new programme introduced this year that has helped us strengthen our ties with IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay and IIT-Hyderabad. Under the Purdue Undergraduate Research Experience programme aka PURE, 25 Indian undergrads are with us in Indiana working on projects with faculty and graduate mentors in computer science, chemical, civil, electrical, computer and mechanical engineering. Collectively, the research projects address many areas of importance for the US and India, including energy, health, agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, communications and information technology. 

We plan to repeat and expand this programme in summer 2017 to welcome more Indian students at Purdue. Our partnerships are sustainable because like-minded faculty from Purdue and Indian partner institutions collaborate with each other. 

Purdue also has a research partnership with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd, one of India’s most respected pharmaceutical companies. How is this academia-industry collaboration progressing? 

Very well. In fact, it’s also a pleasure to announce the new Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories-Purdue Doctoral Fellowship Programme, which has triggered interest in similar programmes with other Indian companies.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories will fund a five-year programme that will support two new fellows from India annually to work on their doctorates at Purdue. Purdue and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories signed a strategic partnership memorandum of understanding in 2015 to strengthen pharmaceutical research and development. Two fellows will be selected in January 2017. 

Purdue is among America’s top engineering education universities with a great reputation for research and innovation. How satisfied are you with the preparedness of Indian engineering graduates for higher education in the US? 

Unequivocally, Indian students are among the best prepared for our rigorous curricula.

What are some of the breakthrough research and innovations of Purdue University in recent times and how satisfied are you with their market application in the US?

Our research in the life sciences focuses on four critical areas: plant sciences to feed a growing world population; drug discovery to save lives; integrative neurosciences; and inflammation, immunology and infectious diseases. 
With our College of Engineering and College of Agriculture ranked among the Top 10 in the US, no other university has Purdue’s expertise and resources to address the world’s food needs with the planet’s population predicted to increase to 9 billion by 2050. Our researchers are working to grow plants that deliver higher yields, are more nutritious, use water and nutrients more efficiently, and tolerate greater environmental variation than today’s agricultural crops.

In terms of drug discovery, our goals are to accelerate the rate of discovery to move revelations from the lab to commercialisation and then to the millions of patients who need hope and relief. Purdue researchers currently have 16 new drugs under clinical trials in the US, plus 25 more in the pipeline, placing Purdue among the top institutions in the United States for drug discovery. 

In terms of our research innovations reaching the marketplace, some of our accomplishments in recent years are: 27 startups formed from Purdue intellectual property in the 2015-16 fiscal, a 500 percent increase over the past four years. Moreover, Purdue is ranked 15th among universities granted US utility patents in 2015. In that year, 118 US patents were awarded to Purdue researchers — more than twice as many as in 2012. Simultaneously, confidence in Purdue as a research powerhouse continues to grow: sponsored research funding from industry touched a record at $403 million (Rs.2,769 crore) in fiscal 2015-16, and Purdue researchers also received a record number of licenses in 2015-16, aggregating 147.