When Sod Solutions, a turfgrass company needed a new variety of Bermuda grass to take to market, it partnered with Mississippi State University. Eight years later, the company and university jointly announced the release of the new product.
That collaboration is one of hundreds the university has undertaken in recent years.
Since MSU was founded, the university has worked with private and public sector organizations to research and develop new technologies and products, Director of Technology Management Jeremy Clay said.
“MSU is always open to supporting industry and helping businesses,” Clay said. “It’s not unusual for industries, whether a turf company like Sod Solutions or other companies coming to the university, needing help with the problem. And our job is to help solve these problems.”
MSU Executive Director of Research Initiatives and Innovation Katie Echols told The Dispatch that in the last five years, the university has engaged in 4,013 active projects to research and develop technologies and products for both private and public sector organizations. Private for-profit organizations sponsored approximately 11 percent, or roughly 440 projects.
“(The projects) can be anything from feed, fertilizers, chemicals, machining, wood and paper products, animal health, genetics, biomedical, etc.,” Echols said. “We also have relationships with companies working in the following sectors: energy, communication, advanced manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, etc.”
According to the most recent spending and impact report from MSU, the school spent $213.1 million in the 2018-19 fiscal year on research and development expenditures, including labor and research spending, which the report says is equivalent to supporting 3,306 jobs.
Another company which partnered with the university, Juva Juice, began as a smoothie vending machine company by Justin Mitchener when he was a junior at MSU. He began working with a faculty member in 2004 to research and design such a machine. Though he would later outsource the manufacturing in 2005, he kept his partnership with the university, which had a 5-percent equity stake in his company, and by setting up his first Juva machine on campus in 2008.
“Even when we outsourced it, the relationship was the same,” Mitchener said. “There was a group that I could lean in on and ask questions and different things that they just all helped a lot.”
California-based company M4 Aerospace Engineering joined MSU in 2018 to develop carbon fiber based non-cylindrical hydrogen tanks for aircraft using the university’s carbon fiber stitching technology at the Advanced Composites Institute.
M4 President Myles Baker told The Dispatch MSU was a clear choice for the project after learning the stitching technology used to fabricate carbon fiber parts was at the university.
“I had been tracking that stitching technology for some time,” Baker said. “When I realized that it was out at the university, we found a connection where we could essentially do some development work using that technology.”
![](https://cdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/grant-juva-2-10-12-22.jpg)
How do companies sponsor projects?
When companies are looking to research with the university, they work with departments like Technology Management to find faculty experts in an applicable area to form research teams for faculty and students to do the project. Companies can also directly ask an expert at the university, even before going to any department head.
Sod Solutions Executive Director of Research Roberto Gurgel came to MSU in 2014 — and particularly turfgrass breeding expert Wayne Philly — to help develop a stronger, more shade and cold-resistant hybrid of the company’s celebration Bermuda grass species. Sod Solutions agreed to sponsor the project for eight years, and on Sept. 22 the new breed was released.
Gurgel said MSU offered Sod Solutions two key benefits: Philly, who Gurgel had worked with on several other occasions; and extensive resources and facilities.
“I knew that he had a good experience,” Gurgel said. “He also had a research station that had lots of areas that he could use. And that was important also.”
According to Clay, project timelines vary. While some projects utilize undergrad programs like senior design projects, which last one or two semesters, others can take years.
“You may have a senior design project that takes less than a year, maybe two semesters for a student team to finish a project,” Clay said. “And then you have those … longer-term projects, like the grass, the grass variety development, because it takes a while to cross those grasses and grow them out in the fields.”
Once a project is complete, the product patent belongs to the university, which then licenses the company to use that patent to further the research or manufacture and distribute that product in Sod Solution’s case.
What are the associated costs of the research?
The price tag for research also depends on what the company is asking, how long the project takes, and the equipment and labor needed to complete the project.
“It’s totally project dependent, and totally dependent on the scope of work and how much time and what resources you need to accomplish a project,” Clay said.
Philly told The Dispatch that before he left the Sod Solutions project in 2019, the company had paid less than $20,000 in the five years he oversaw the project.
M4 has paid the university more than $100,000 to sponsor its research project along with approximately $1 million from NASA, which began sponsoring M4 in 2019 for the project.
How do students benefit?
There are also several benefits for the students who choose to participate in these projects. Some enter classes focused on a particular project while others can work on them as an internship or job.
“Students have a chance to develop expertise,” Clay said. “It provides a good learning experience for them to work with a company to solve a real problem of the type they might see once they get out in the real world and start working.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 45 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.