The USG also dispenses public funds (allocated by the state's legislature) to the institutions but not the lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship.

One regent was appointed from each of Georgia's ten congressional districts and the eleventh member was chosen at large.

[9] Governor Richard Russell Jr.'s initial appointees included Cason Jewell Callaway Sr., Martha Berry, Richard Russell Sr. (the governor's father), George C. Woodruff, William Dickson Anderson Sr. (1873–1957), Egbert Erle Cocke Sr. (1895–1977) and Philip Robert Weltner Sr. (1887–1981).

[16] On April 1, 2022, former Georgia Governor and United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue became the system's 14th Chancellor.

While GRA receives a state appropriation for investment in university-based research opportunities, its operations are funded through foundation and industry contributions.

In its first 19 years, GRA leveraged $525 million in state funding into $2.6 billion of additional federal and private investment.

In 2007, GRA coalesced the strengths of several universities into a focused research effort built around new types of vaccines and therapeutics.

For each scholar, GRA invests $750,000 for an endowment, an amount that the research university matches in private funds on a minimum 1-1 basis.

Georgia's investment in GRA Eminent Scholars has yielded more than $1 billion in outside grants and contracts for the state and helped to launch some 35 companies.

The move was part of a larger effort to align Georgia's economic development assets in a more effective way.

The COIs help find technology solutions to industry challenges, in part by connecting companies to leading-edge research at Georgia's universities.