18 Pervasive Technology Institute:

IU’s IT organization not only manages its entire tech landscape, but it’s also making discoveries and helping set the course for the IT field. In fact, we are unique in higher education for the ways in which our IT service organization, UITS, collaborates with IU researchers and conducts its own frontline research.  

One of the main ways we do so is via the Pervasive Technology Institute at IU, or PTI. PTI was founded in 1999 to help IU become a leader in the use and application of information technology. It was seeded through a $30 million grant from the Lilly Endowment.

The institute comprises 10 affiliated research centers focused on using technology to tackle problems such as human health, cybersecurity, and the impact of global climate change. Staff create software, deliver information and services, and support and provision a world-class cyberinfrastructure. Each of these centers is active in obtaining external grants and contracts.

The 10 PTI centers are:

• Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research provides leadership in applied cybersecurity technology, education, and policy guidance. 
• Crisis Technologies Innovation Lab accelerates research and practice on the use of next-generation technologies for emergency and crisis response. 
• Cyberinfrastructure Assessment and Evaluation conducts return-on-investment analysis, longitudinal studies, and other program assessment activities. 
• Cyberinfrastructure Integration Research Center enhances the use of advanced cyberinfrastructure, including large supercomputers, grids of smaller computers, and advanced data sources. 
• Data To Insight Center conducts societally relevant research, scholarship, and outreach in data science and data-driven computing. 
• Digital Science Center explores new applications related to the most cutting-edge grid and cloud technologies and works to define some of the most powerful new computational techniques available. 
• eLearning Research and Practice Lab acts as a link between IU faculty researchers and the systems that store eLearning records, helping to enable systematic and sustained research.  
• HathiTrust Research Center facilitates non-profit, educational, and computational uses of the HathiTrust Digital Library through text and data analysis. 
• National Center for Genome Analysis Support enables the U.S. biological research community to analyze, understand, and make use of the vast amount of genomic information now available. 
• UITS Research Technologies develops, delivers, and supports advanced technology solutions that enable new possibilities in research, scholarly endeavors, and creative activity at IU and beyond.

PTI executes its mission through collaboration across organizational boundaries within IU, an innovative collaboration of the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology; the Maurer School of Law,
the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the Kelley School of Business.     

PTI is also a hub for activity and collaboration beyond IU—serving as a point of contact for external partners and a nucleus of new ideas within IU.