Throughout Purdue University, interdisciplinary collaboration is occurring in order to research and address the World's Grand Challenges. This Purdue initiative is in response to President Obama's challenge to companies, universities, foundations, and philanthropists to identify and pursue grand challenges by expanding the frontiers of human knowledge about the important problems the world faces.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has responded to proposals in 2014 and 2016 submitted by Purdue University to integrate research in the humanities and social sciences with that in the STEM fields, and disseminate the results in collaboration with Libraries and the University Press. The primary goal of this partnership is to expand the capacity for diverse, interdisciplinary discovery and drive beneficial change, raise public awareness, and improve the human condition. The first of these Mellon-funded grants was titled "Catalyzing the involvement of Humanists and Social Scientists in Grand Challenge Initiatives" and concluded in July 2016. The second, titled "Breaking Through: Developing Multidisciplinary Solutions to Global Grand Challenges" runs from August 2016 through July 2019.