C. Michael Cassidy, the president of the Georgia Research Alliance, spoke yesterday in Providence as a guest of the Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC).

Georgia faced a massive budget deficit in 1990, forcing 10-percent spending cuts in most state departments. But the governor and leading lawmakers still scraped together $15 million to start the Georgia Research Alliance, a nonprofit organization charged with expanding the state’s economy by promoting scientific research.

Seventeen years later, the alliance has helped build 125 companies that together employ more than 4,000 people...In all, the Georgia Research Alliance has supplied $400 million to help create technology jobs...

...The Georgia Research Alliance, Cassidy said, receives $30 million in state financing annually. It spends $8.25 million per year to recruit researchers and an additional $4.7 million to support start-up companies. Nearly $16 million in alliance funds go to upgrading research infrastructure...

...More important, he added, the alliance’s VentureLab has helped researchers and “serial entrepreneurs” collaborate to commercialize the discoveries.

Rhode Island efforts, though newer, have similar goals in mind. For example, STAC, created in 2005, is given $1.5 million annually to distribute to collaborative research. In addition, the publicly funded Slater Technology Fund gives out $3 million a year in seed capital.