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Category: Innovation

Ready to Launch

jennbryant on May 31, 2019

What it’s like to live in UGA’s first living-learning community dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship

New faculty Innovation Fellows Program accepting applications

jennbryant on May 10, 2019

By Aaron Hale

The Office of Research is now accepting applications for the university’s new Innovation Fellows Program. This program is designed to support faculty who want to engage in commercialization and product development, with an eye toward fine-tuning their research programs to align with industry and market needs. 

Faculty of all ranks are encouraged to apply.

President Jere W. Morehead announced the Innovation Fellows Program during the State of the University address, delivered in January. It is part of a multi-pronged effort to fuel greater innovation on campus.

“This new program is responding to a vibrant and growing culture of innovation and entrepreneurship among the faculty at the University of Georgia,” said Morehead. “I am excited to see this initiative launch and take shape in the months and years ahead.”

Each semester, one to three faculty will be named Innovation Fellows. Fellows will receive up to $10,000 in funding to support customer discovery, make connections with potential industry partners and learn from successful entrepreneurs and investors. 

The fellowship begins with a weeklong immersion in UGA’s innovation-oriented curriculum from programs like NSF I-Corps followed by another week of activity planning and matching with mentors. The remainder of the semester will require a weekly commitment of about eight hours to keep moving the Fellows’ potentially commercially viable ideas forward. 

At the end of the program, Fellows will have a deeper understanding of industry needs as well as the tools to better assess how those needs align with their particular research interests. They also will be strongly connected to the university’s growing innovation ecosystem, including the new Innovation District initiative. 

“In addition to gaining new insight into how their research program aligns with industry needs, we hope these Fellows will serve as beacons for innovation within their home departments, informing and inspiring fellow faculty to connect with the Innovation District  initiative and to find new ways to make their research available to the wider world,” said Derek Eberhart, associate vice president for research and executive director of Innovation Gateway.

Applications for the fall 2019 Innovation Fellows Program are due May 20, and instructions can be found athttp://startups.uga.edu/Innovation_Fellows/. Appointments will be announced the week of June 3.

UGA’s Industry Express program inks first licensing deal

jennbryant on November 29, 2018

(Photo by Amy Ware)

By Michael Terrazas

Industry Express, a recent initiative launched by the Office of Research’s Industry Engagement program, has signed its first deal with a company looking to license UGA research.

ECO Animal Health, a drug-development company based in London, has signed a deal for just over $1 million to license research-related innovations from the lab of Naola Ferguson-Noel, associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and a researcher in the Poultry Diagnostic & Research Center. 

Ferguson-Noel studies Mycoplasma gallisepticum, a bacterium that can cause severe respiratory disease in poultry. She is working toward a vaccine for Mycoplasma-related illnesses in poultry, which she says the U.S. government has been attempting to mitigate since the 1930s. 

“Mycoplasma-related illnesses in poultry can be financially devastating to commercial poultry producers with global losses estimated at more than 500 million pounds annually,” said Peter Lawrence, chairman of ECO Animal Health. “We are delighted to have entered this collaboration with UGA and expect that further innovative developments will follow.”

“Although Mycoplasma control programs are often based on biosecurity, early detection, quarantine and elimination of positive flocks, vaccination is also a good option in some circumstances,” Ferguson-Noel said. “I do think a vaccine is within reach.”

UGA has significantly stepped up its activity in industry licensing in the last decade. For 10 straight years, the university has ranked in the top 10 nationwide for overall deal flow, and to date more than 700 UGA products and technologies have been introduced to the marketplace. However, depending on the technology and the company involved, negotiations for individual deals can be extensive.

Industry Express was created to streamline the contracting process. The program offers a standard licensing agreement that avoids time-consuming negotiations and allows all sides to focus on bringing UGA research innovations to market as quickly as possible.

“Our goal is to get the technology out there. We want to encourage collaboration between industry and the university, and Industry Express allows us to have the terms known up front, so companies can more easily quantify their cost,” said Nick Hinson, contracting officer in Sponsored Projects Administration. “It’s good for us, too, because you can just plug in the company information and go. This was a $1 million deal, and it was as easy as a $10,000 deal.”