Indiana University and Purdue University announced Friday a vision to split IUPUI into two separate institutions. The campus will be known as IU Indianapolis by fall 2024.  IUPUI is owned and operated by IU, with certain programs that grant Purdue degrees.

Moving forward, both universities will govern their own programs and still collaborate to form a new bioscience engineering institute, which IU president Pam Whitten says will combine Purdue’s biomedical engineering with the IU School of Medicine. “We view this as an opportunity, frankly, to send a statement to the whole country that Indiana is the place to come to get training, to start a company, or to hire people in the field of bio health engineering.”

IU will retain certain administrative responsibilities for both institutions, the school of science, and athletics. Purdue will assume responsibility for engineering, computer science and technology.

Purdue has yet to name its Indianapolis campus, but president Mitch Daniels says the school plans to increase its student presence in Indianapolis by 1,000 students. “Many of us at Purdue for years have felt that we would like to have a bigger, more visible and, I hope, more impactful presence in Indianapolis. The current structure did not permit us to do that.”

Currently, about 27,000 student attend IUPUI, with about 24,000 receiving IU degrees.

Both universities plan to form working groups in the coming months to work out details on the transition.