Elevate | Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Elevate impact

They’re simple words that pose a multifaceted challenge—how would WPI, already offering a distinctive approach to education that’s often imitated but impossible to duplicate, do even better, across the local, regional, and global scales?

We set our sights on becoming the premier global polytechnic, building on our pioneering leadership in project-based learning and a growing cadre of engagements that connect our faculty, students, staff, and alumni to challenges and opportunities, scholarship and research, in our home city of Worcester, our capital city of Boston, and at universities and public and private partners from Asunción, Paraguay, to Zurich, Switzerland.

We are sending more students around the world as part of WPI’s signature Global Projects Program; applying more than $2 million in funding from the Kern Family Foundation to help our community embrace the entrepreneurial mindset and find unexpected ways to create value; and credentialing Grand Challenge Scholars through the National Academy of Engineering program, even as we provide all students with more support for mapping their life’s mission in concert with their academic major.

We are advancing transformative research, achieving a landmark 60 percent more funding over the past four years; providing more than 40 percent of doctoral students with internships while increasing graduate professional development programs by 200 percent; and, having launched and learned from a small cohort, are better prepared to meet market demand for personalized online learning.

We’re expanding our reach to higher education institutions both here and abroad through WPI’s Center for Project-Based Learning and to our alumni, partners, and peers across the globe who are opening doors in return—and in its second year of operation, the Innovation Studio is abuzz with makers on a mission.