Listen to SSTI's Interview with Mike Cassidy of the Georgia Research Alliance

SSTI has an effective new learning tool for TBED policymakers and practitioners seeking guidance in approaches to building and sustaining tech-based economies. Through exclusive interviews with Excellence in TBED Award recipients, find out first-hand how these award winning initiatives successfully responded to a critical need by applying innovative approaches to generate substantial economic gains for their region.

Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholars® 2007 Winner for the Expanding the Research Infrastructure category

Listen to a six-minute clip of SSTI's interview with Mike Cassidy.

The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholars program brings pre-eminent scientists to Georgia's research universities and provides them with the tools they need to lead R&D teams with the greatest potential for generating significant gains for the state. The program is principally an endowment based program that couples $750,000 raised from the State of Georgia with $750,000 raised by the host university through private sources to create a $1.5 million permanent endowment. The income generated by the endowment is used to fund the discretionary activity of the scholar.

To date, the program has recruited 61 Eminent Scholars to GRA's university partners. These scholars have leveraged more than $2 billion in federal, foundation and corporate research funding, fostered and led 20 centers of research excellence, and have spun out more than 20 new technology start-ups from their research and research centers. Additionally, university research expenditures since 1990 have grown from $450 million to $1.3 billion.

Listen to an exclusive interview with GRA President and CEO, Mike Cassidy to learn more about how the Eminent Scholars program has effectively leveraged resources and established partnerships to generate significant economic returns for the state of Georgia.

Listen to the six-minute condensed version of the interview or the full conversation (26 minutes).

SSTI will be posting podcast interviews with all of the 2007 and 2008 Excellence in TBED Award winners in the coming months.

For more information about the SSTI Excellence in TBED Awards, visit: http://www.ssti.org/Awards/overview.htm. View this page on the web at: http://www.ssti.org/media/cassidy.html.