These professors couldn't sit back and wait for research funding. This is how they got their money — and just how much value those dollars have in the region.

Karl Rethemeyer, interim dean of Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at University at Albany, understands what it’s like to be an entrepreneur.

Like a startup founder, Rethemeyer’s had the challenge of securing investors — in his case, federal agencies — to support his work.

“Some people don’t realize that part of, especially in more modern times, part of being an academic in many areas of social science is also about being an entrepreneur,” Rethemeyer says. He studies social networks, public policy and terrorism.

“Just like you get a bunch of guys together who do an internet startup and they mostly fund it by working 90 hours a week and hoping it will pay off, it’s a similar sort of thing for academic enterprise,” he says.

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Dec. 4, 2015 | Megan Rogers