  We review work on the formation of gravitino condensates via the super-Higgs
effect in the early Universe. This is a scenario for both inflating the early
universe and breaking local supersymmetry (supergravity), entirely independent
of any coupling to external matter. The goldstino mode associated with the
breaking of (global) supersymmetry is "eaten" by the gravitino field, which
becomes massive (via its own vacuum condensation) and breaks the local
supersymmetry (supergravity) dynamically. The most natural association of
gravitino condensates with inflation proceeds in an indirect way, via a
Starobinsky-inflation-type phase. The higher-order curvature corrections of the
(quantum) effective action of gravitino condensates induced by integrating out
massive gravitino degrees of freedom in a curved space-time background, in the
broken-supergravity phase, are responsible for inducing a scalar mode which
inflates the Universe. The scenario is in agreement with Planck data
phenomenology in a natural and phenomenologically-relevant range of parameters,
namely Grand-Unified-Theory values for the supersymmetry breaking energy scale
and dynamically-induced gravitino mass.
