Innovation is in Full Bloom in Mississippi

 “Formulation projects that now take a year will be completed in a day,” said Dr. Robert Lochhead, director of the School of Polymers and Higher Performance Materials at the University of Southern Mississippi, talking about a $30-million, 512-acre innovation and commercialization park in Hattiesburg. Called “The Garden” (www.innocultivation.com), it will be home to the $27-million National Formulation Science Laboratory, the Mississippi Polymer Institute and a host of other organizations that will work together with the university and the region’s Area Development Partnership to move innovation from the mind to the marketplace faster. “This kind of development is unique in the country. I don’t know of anywhere else where they have everything in place like we do,” said Dr. Shelby Thames, a polymer scientist and Distinguished University Research Professor at Southern Mississippi who is The Garden’s original visionary. “What we’ve created allows a company, an individual entrepreneur, university researcher, staff member or even students to go full circle from the formulation of an idea in a lab to the creation of a viable and marketable commercial product. It is a virtual one-stop-shop for entrepreneurs.”