Press Release

BIRMINGHAM—Ralph H. Smith II, President and CEO of the Ralph Smith Group LLC, and special counsel at Jones Walker LLP, announced the creation of a framework for cooperation in research and economic development between the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology, and Productive Innovation ("MINCyT") and the University of Alabama at Birmingham ("UAB"). This framework for cooperation is an outgrowth of the Global Innovation Alliance, a consortium of government, business, and academic institutions organized to promote scientific innovation and economic development,which Mr. Smith co-founded in 2012.

MINCyT sets the priorities for scientific research in Argentina and provides in excess of 90 percent of total research funding for both public and private institutions. Argentina has a long history of intellectual excellence, particularly in the life sciences, and its citizens have received more Nobel prizes than the rest of South America combined. With an enrollment of over 18,000 students, UAB is a world-renowned doctoral research university and academic medical center.

About Ralph Smith and the Ralph Smith Group
Ralph Smith, CEO of The Ralph Smith Group and special counsel at Jones Walker LLP, served for almost a decade as General Counsel and a Member of the Chancellor's Senior Policy Staff at The University of Alabama System, where he also taught and advised on international initiatives. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars and is responsible for the Rhodes Scholarship selection process in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. A corporate and business transactions lawyer by training, Mr. Smith attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar from 1973-1976 and helped launch in 2012 the Global Innovation Alliance. He was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013 to the Order of St. John, an Order of Chivalry of the British Crown with historical roots in the 11th century Knights Hospitaller and Knights of Malta. 

The Ralph Smith Group LLC (www.ralphsmithgroup.com), provides strategic consulting services to business and higher education worldwide.

About Jones Walker
Jones Walker LLP, with more than 390 attorneys, provides a comprehensive range of legal services to a national and international corporate client base through offices in Alabama, Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, and Texas.

# # #