Why Purdue?

Purdue University is in a unique position to contribute intellectually to innovation scaling because of its world-renowned commitment to innovation and international development. Purdue’s College of Agriculture, which is ranked 3rd in the U.S. and 5th in the world, has long been a source of scalable agricultural innovations, including the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) system, which has been adopted by more than six million farmers in more than 25 countries. In 2018, Purdue University successfully hosted the conference entitled Innovations in Agriculture: Scaling Up to Reach Millions, and developed a sourcebook for best practices in scaling innovations. Since then, Purdue-led scaling activities include organizing a side event on scaling at the African Green Revolution Forum meeting in Accra, Ghana in September 2019, organizing a scaling event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC in April 2019, and incorporating a scaling theme with a series of global scaling thought leaders within our year-long USDA-funded Global Agriculture Innovation Forum, which was conducted on-line during the pandemic in 2021, reaching an audience of nearly 3,000 registrants from 126 countries. Researchers in Purdue’s colleges of Engineering, Science, Health and Human Sciences, Vet Med, Pharmacy and Polytechnic are all at the forefront of innovation. Purdue’s Scaling Innovations Lab (ScIL) seeks to enhance the international reach and impact of multiple Purdue initiatives including Purdue in Indy, the Hard Tech Corridor, and Purdue Computes, by helping university innovators identify and expand pathways for scaling the innovations that they develop. Purdue University’s Extension network offers potential partners for ScIL to help bring innovations from researchers to stakeholders. The Scaling Innovations Lab grows out of the idea that Purdue should be seen as “the Scaling University.”