Purdue, UNIC-Athens partner to advance research collab, online learning in Europe

Purdue University is expanding its global impact through a new strategic partnership with UNIC Athens of the University of Nicosia in Greece, to deepen a growing transatlantic network focused on advancing education, research and innovation in high-impact fields.

This partnership will focus on coordinated research, faculty and student collaboration and innovation across cutting-edge science, engineering and artificial intelligence disciplines.

The partnership is built around three core pillars:

• Dual master’s degrees, online workforce development and executive education programmes delivered collaboratively by UNIC Athens and Purdue.
• Coordinated research and innovation activity together with UNIC Evolve, the University of Nicosia’s major research initiative focused on harnessing AI to improve human life, with particular emphasis on health span, longevity and biodefence.
• Creation of a Purdue Regional Office at UNIC Athens’ campus at The Ellinikon, a smart-city hub under development in Athens that will bring together advanced infrastructure, cutting‑edge technology and an emphasis on quality of life.

“We envision a transformational opportunity with the planned opening of a regional office on the Athens campus in this new smart district,” said Dimitrios Peroulis, Purdue’s senior vice president for partnerships and online. “We are deeply grateful to our partners for generously making this space available at no cost to Purdue to support the launch of our presence at The Ellinikon,” he continued.

“Situated within Europe’s largest urban regeneration project and in close proximity to cutting‑edge innovation and technology, the Purdue space will enable our researchers and students to collaborate meaningfully with industry and the broader innovation ecosystem in Greece and the wider region.”

The partnership will coordinate research, teaching and innovation activities across cutting-edge fields, including:

• Precision health, personalised pharmacy and medicine
• Next-generation sequencing and life sciences
• Robotics and AI
• Agricultural and biomedical engineering
• Digital twins and computational fluid dynamics
• Analytical chemistry

“This partnership with Purdue University strengthens UNIC Athens’ role as a bridge between Europe and the United States in advanced education and research,” said Dimitris Drikakis, UNIC’s vice president for global partnerships and dean of the School of Science and Engineering. “Together, we are building globally connected programmes and innovation pathways that respond directly to the technological and societal challenges of the future.”

For his part, Odisseas Athanasiou, CEO, LAMDA Development, noted: “We are delighted to welcome this new collaboration between the University of Nicosia and Purdue University to The Ellinikon, which further strengthens our vision of creating a world‑class hub for education, innovation and global impact.”

This global partnership underscores two key priorities for Purdue: One Health, which brings together research on human, animal and plant health, and Purdue Computes, which aims to establish the university as a global leader in computing, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum science.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. Learn more about how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap, including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative, at: https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

About the University of Nicosia / UNIC Athens

The University of Nicosia (UNIC) is the largest research university in Cyprus. UNIC Athens is UNIC’s new branch campus in Athens, Greece, located within The Ellinikon development. The UNIC Athens campus is being developed as a living lab for the AI era, supporting teaching, research and executive education in precision health, robotics, financial technology and smart-city applications. This living-lab model is driven by UNIC Evolve, UNIC’s interdisciplinary research initiative applying AI to improve human wellbeing, with particular emphasis on health span, longevity and biodefence.