Science makes cents

Jon Knutson, The Forum

Dr. Delore Zimmerman helps the region’s science- and technology-based enterprises grow and flourish.

He’s coordinator of the Grand Forks, N.D.-based Red River Valley Research Corridor Coordinating Center.

The corridor dates to 2002, when Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., championed it as a way to bring more federal research money to the state.

Federal funding for research and development rose 106.7 percent in North Dakota from 2001 to 2005, according to a National Science Foundation report.

Federal R&D spending nationwide rose 29 percent in the same period.

The coordinating center was established in 2004. Its role includes tracking and working to acquire federal research funding, marketing the state’s research and technology assets outside the region, and linking state colleges and universities, commercialization teams and business investment capital.

Zimmerman, a Wishek, N.D., native, has a doctoral degree from Penn State University. His work focused on mobilizing territorial-based alliances for economic development.

He’s president and co-founder of Praxis Strategy Group, a research and economic strategy company.

Praxis – which manages the coordinating center – has offices in Grand Forks, Fargo and Duluth, Minn., and has six employees.

View the document below for Q&A with Dr. Delore Zimmerman