The following article was taken from a University of Texas at Dallas News Release.

RICHARDSON, Texas (Nov. 1, 2005) – University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) School of Management Professor Frank Bass gained special recognition Monday when The University of South Australia in Adelaide announced the creation of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, named in honor of Dr. Bass and Andrew Ehrenberg of South Bank University in London.

Dr. Bass, who is Eugene McDermott University of Texas System Professor of Management, also was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by the Australian university. University of South Australia Professor Byron Sharp, director of the newly formed institute, presented the degree at a luncheon yesterday hosted by School of Management Dean Dr. Hasan Pirkul on the UTD campus.

Bass, who has been at UTD since 1982, was awarded an honorary degree from The Ohio State University in August, and the 2005 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference at Emory University held a special conference June 18-19 in his honor. Additionally, the University of Groningen in The Netherlands established the Frank M. Bass Chair and announced its first recipient in September. In 1988, Purdue University awarded Bass the degree of Doctor of Management honoris causa.

Bass said that he was particularly surprised by the creation of the new South Australian institute. “They have established a curriculum for students built around the research that Ehrenberg and I have done,” he said. “They thought it would be a nice way to honor us. I was surprised, because I didn’t know anyone (from the University of South Australia) and had no idea they had built the institute.”

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science is devoted to the discovery and applications of trends in marketing, consumer behavior and brand performance. When the university’s large research center, previously named the Marketing Science Centre, reached the status of institute, school officials decided a name change was in order.

“It was decided to [re-name it] after the two academics famous for promoting empirical generalization as the foundation for scientific knowledge about buyer behavior and marketing,” Sharp explained. “Professor Bass showed that it is possible to discover scientific laws concerning buying behavior.”

Ehrenberg’s major contribution to marketing science is that he discovered it is possible to find law-like regularities in buyer behavior. He will formally receive his recognition award from the Australian group in London later this month.

A leading operations research theoretician and practitioner, Bass earned international recognition with his development of the Bass Model in 1969. That mathematical model was used to predict the sales and life cycles of various consumer products, from color television sets and disposable diapers to digital satellite radios. Two years ago, the research journal Management Science hailed his paper as one of the most-cited research papers in the journal’s 50-year history.

Dean Pirkul said that Bass’ recognition was well-deserved. “Dr. Bass is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of the field of marketing science, and we are pleased to see him recognized in this way,” Pirkul said.

Bass is a native of Cuero, Texas, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, an M.B.A. degree from The University of Texas at Austin and a B.B.A. degree from Southwestern University. He joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1961 and later became the Loeb Distinguished Professor of Management at Purdue’s Krannert School of Management.