Purdue Applied Research Institute, LLC

Purdue Applied Research Institute, LLC (PARI), a non-profit limited liability company and research entity affiliated with Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, holds a newly awarded $151 billion defense IDIQ with the Missile Defense Agency while delivering federal research and engineering services as a prime contractor (53% of recent awards) and as a subcontractor to defense primes and universities. PARI operates without SBA set-aside designations and competes full-and-open across defense research, engineering services, and federal grant programs centered on the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of Navy, and Department of Army research portfolios.

PARI's most significant recent win is the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) contract, awarded December 29, 2025, by the Missile Defense Agency. SHIELD is a multiple-award IDIQ with a $151 billion ceiling running through December 28, 2035, structured to support research and development, prototyping, systems engineering, weapon design, production, test and evaluation, and modernization across air, missile, space, cyber, and hybrid threat domains including ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile defense. The contract encompasses both classified and unclassified work leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital engineering, and open systems architectures, with an initial $500 delivery order already issued. PARI also holds an active prime contract with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for engineering support services—geotechnical and structural document review for liquefied natural gas facilities, including compliance evaluations and emergency technical support—with a ceiling of $1.25 million running through September 2028.

On the federal grant side, PARI is recipient on four awards. The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded a project grant beginning January 2025 for novel testing methods for measuring critical gas-phase interactions in hypersonic ground test, running through May 2028. The National Science Foundation awarded a cooperative agreement on March 1, 2024, for an NSF Engines Development Award focused on developing an innovative ecosystem for next-generation factory-built housing in Indiana and Michigan, running through February 26, 2026. The Department of State Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs awarded a public diplomacy cooperative agreement (CFDA 19.040) on October 1, 2023, for $201,999.71 to develop a cybersecurity youth academy for up to 50 young leaders aged 18 to 24 from Jordan, completed December 31, 2024. The Office of the Secretary of Defense awarded a DEPSCOR research grant beginning August 15, 2022, for research on tailoring fracture performance through hierarchical porosity in titanium, completed August 2025.

Customer concentration across PARI's recent portfolio (67% of awards) leans heavily toward the Department of Navy Office of Naval Research (3 awards) and, separately, the Department of Army Materiel Command and Office of the Secretary of Defense (2 awards each), with the Missile Defense Agency holding 2 awards centered on the SHIELD vehicle. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission contract represents the largest single potential-value award at $1.3 million. PARI places work under the Information Analysis Center Multiple-Award Contract (3 task orders) and the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services Small Business vehicle (1 task order), in addition to the SHIELD IDIQ.

Recent subcontract activity shows PARI delivering advanced product innovation and services labor to CACI Inc. Federal across three sub-awards in mid-2025 for the NAVALX program. PARI also subcontracts to Purdue University on two Cornerstone OTA collaborative awards (November 2024 and March 2024) supporting the SCALE microelectronics workforce development project, and to International Development Group Advisory Services on education and youth programs in sub-Saharan Africa under the USAID Advancing Learning Outcomes in Africa mechanism (November 2024). Earlier, PARI delivered technical services to Accelint AI LLC on a Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project on quantum-inspired neural networks (April 2022). On the federal grant sub-award side, PARI serves primarily as a sub-recipient to Purdue University and, occasionally, as a sub to other prime grant recipients.

SCI-reported invoicing for PARI shows minimal federal service-contract activity captured above the $150,000 threshold: $21 thousand in FY2024 across the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission engineering support services contract, with no FTE activity recorded and government-paid rates around $1,728.33 per hour. SCI is a partial view and excludes the majority of PARI's research grant work, classified defense work, and sub-award revenue; PARI's true federal revenue footprint is substantially larger, particularly given the SHIELD IDIQ ceiling and active research grants. Award activity has accelerated recently—six awards in 2025—with only one award (the Jordan cybersecurity academy grant, completed December 2024) facing recompete in the next twenty-four months.