The University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences has announced a new initiative aimed at supporting student entrepreneurship, funded by a $3 million grant from The Marcus Foundation. The program, called Franklin CREATE!, is designed to help arts and sciences students develop entrepreneurial skills and launch startup companies.
Franklin CREATE! will use a three-phase model that offers hands-on experience, mentorship, and resources for students to turn their ideas into businesses. The initiative is a partnership between Franklin College, UGA’s Entrepreneurship Program, the Innovation District, and CREATE-X at Georgia Tech.
“We are tremendously excited about engaging Franklin faculty and alumni to unleash our students’ full entrepreneurial potential and to drive positive change to enhance market-driven impact,” said Anna Stenport, dean of Franklin College. “It is a critical moment to bring scientific, technological, artistic, computational and social impact advancements into the laboratory of fresh ideas that characterize startup culture. We are deeply grateful to The Marcus Foundation for their support in strengthening our students’ ability to further connect their campus experience with their career aspirations.”
The college plans to introduce more than 2,500 students to entrepreneurship over the three-year pilot period. It also aims to create at least 20 new courses or curriculum pathways and help launch at least 60 startups.
Franklin CREATE! builds on existing university programs supporting innovation. Since its launch in 2016, the UGA Entrepreneurship Program has provided academic certificates at both undergraduate and graduate levels as well as accelerator programs, seed funding opportunities, and pitch contests for more than 1,000 students annually. The Innovation District has played a role in launching over 200 companies based on UGA research and bringing more than 1,200 products to market. For three consecutive years, UGA has ranked first among U.S. universities for commercial products introduced by industry partners based on university research according to AUTM’s annual survey (https://autm.net).
“The University of Georgia has developed an incredibly strong culture of entrepreneurship and innovation among students and faculty, and Franklin CREATE! promises to take our efforts to a new level in the arts and sciences,” said Benjamin C. Ayers, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at UGA. “I am excited to see this new initiative get started, and I thank The Marcus Foundation for its generous support of our students.”
CREATE-X at Georgia Tech is another partner in the project; its model will be adapted for use within Franklin College’s curricula.
“We are excited to join forces and collaborate with the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences to exchange ideas and learnings from CREATE-X that will drive student innovation and entrepreneurship across the campuses of UGA and Georgia Tech,” said Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, vice president of commercialization at Georgia Tech. “For more than 10 years, CREATE-X has shown a proven track record of success, and we are thrilled to partner and build a shared ecosystem of support, mentorship, and cross-campus collaboration for students. By bringing together the strengths of our institutions, we’re creating a model for innovation that can empower everyone across the entire University System of Georgia to turn bold ideas into real-world impact.”
Franklin College is noted as the oldest and largest college at UGA with over 12,000 students enrolled each year. Its faculty have recently received recognition as winners of UGA’s Entrepreneur of the Year award from both computing (2025) and theatre/film (2024) departments.
