Business Fellow Network

Simon is Funding and Partnership Development Manager at the University of Kent in Canterbury.

His role is to facilitate and catalyse collaboration, both internally and with external partners, on significant challenges; freight and personal logistics, digitalisation, all in the context of climate change and sustainability.

He gained a post-graduate diploma in Sustainable Business from the University of Cambridge, chaired the Passenger Car Working Group of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and the City of London Sustainability Forum.

Simon’s experience has largely been in supply chains across a wide number of sectors, including grocery, forest products, recycling and automotive. Each of these sectors’ supply chains have their own characteristics and are at different stages of development, sharing this experience can help address challenges.

Simon’s work is perhaps best summed up as ‘digital through to green’. He enjoys establishing new collaborations and ventures across complex partnerships to ensure the total aspect of the best of UK’s academic knowledge can combine with practical industry and customer needs. The Connected Places Catapult Business Fellowship will help him achieve this in a very practical way.

Ben work’s in the Corporate Partnerships Team within Research and Innovation at the University of Nottingham. He coordinates the Transport sector within the team which includes Automotive, Rail and Intelligent Mobility.

The Corporate Partnership team works in conjunction with academic schools and other professional services teams to develop and manage long-term strategic relationships with key corporate businesses in order to enhance the relevance and impact of the University’s research and training activities, driving increased industrial income and further the University’s external reputation.

Ben helps to link existing and new corporate partners to functions across the University including student recruitment, CPD services, and research capabilities.

The University of Nottingham research portfolio in the Transport area includes propulsion and power systems, electrification, light weighting and advanced manufacturing, intelligent vehicles and infrastructure and seamless mobility of people and goods.

In his role, Ben helps coordinate collaborative research bids including Innovate UK, APC and other funding sources. He also is helping with the coordination of the University’s response to the ISCF including the Future Mobility strand and the Driving the Electrification Revolution proposal.

Ben’s role is vital to these research bids as he helps link the different research groups and faculties together which is necessary in multidisciplinary proposals. Ben’s team is also involved in bringing together large-scale funding bids including the Centre for Doctoral Training calls, the EPSRC Prosperity Partnership calls and the Strength in Places fund.

Tom is a knowledgeable academic and a skilled commercial manager, who for 15 years managed purchasing, production control, distribution and overall supply chain, in manufacturing industry. In this period Tom gained experience in road, rail and sea freight working in the steel, automotive, transport and machine tools industries.

For the last 19 years he has pursued an academic career and is currently a Principal Research Associate, managing the Freight and Logistics research group, deliverables, and dissemination in EU research projects, and pursuing academic and applied research, at Newcastle University.

Tom has presented his research work and outcomes at international scientific, policy, and business conferences and workshops and has a strong portfolio of publications: procedia, trade press, book chapters and journal articles.
He teaches freight and logistics on MSc courses at Newcastle University, as well as having researched and delivered international curriculum development for rail operations and logistics. He helped develop a fuel management module, for deployment in higher education, as part of the UK Freight Best Practice programme. He is also a project evaluator and reviewer for the European Commission in the field of the public procurement of innovation.

His current focus areas include rail freight; city logistics; ICT and transport logistics; and sustainable procurement.

Elizabeth is an experienced Business Development professional with a history of
working at the interface of industrial and academic collaboration in sustainability, engineering, materials science, the transport sector, energy and other related areas. She is the business partnerships and engagement manager for Physical Sciences in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Lancaster University.

The aim of the role is to support academics to engage with industry to form
partnerships. This may be for collaborative research projects, contract research,
Innovate UK funded projects and long-term strategic relationships that can deliver impact across the institution. Elizabeth also looks at wider cross faculty collaborations, for example in sustainable and connected transport, energy and materials.

Elizabeth was previously a Business Development Manager at Brunel University
London, and before that, worked as a Knowledge Transfer Manager at Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network.

Professor Phil Hart joined Cranfield as Director of Energy and Power on 20 August 2018. Phil knows the University well having earned his MSc in marine technology and his PhD in subsea engineering from Cranfield. He has held a series of senior leadership roles within the energy and power sector in the UK, Asia and North America as an engineering director, chief technology officer, chief operating officer, SVP and president.

Working extensively in the offshore sector in renewables and in oil and gas, Phil has built a diverse portfolio of international expertise in energy and power systems and marine/ subsea engineering, developing intellectual property and technologies and services from fundamental research through to concept and then full commercialisation. Throughout his career, Phil has worked with governments and industry, undertaking developments with, among others, the United States Departments of Energy and Defence, Shell, BP, Huawei and Petrobras. With these partners, Phil has created novel development
and commercialisation processes, ensuring that services and technologies withstand competitive threats, hold value and gain market share. In doing so, he has become especially skilled in identifying energy market needs for new technologies and services, understanding societal and industry sector dynamics, establishing product appeal and designing company-wide strategies to exploit these opportunities.

Phil’s current research interests focus in on the nexus of energy technology, services and business/society, and in the wide ranging technologies and approaches to drive the net zero transition at a local through to global level.

Eric has supported numerous successful research bids for Leeds Institute for Transport Studies and has also delivered a “Deep Academic Alliance” with the Transport Systems Catapult to bolster Leeds’ position as a UK centre of excellence.

Eric has been pivotal to the University of Leeds “Virtuocity” city simulation programme, to support the virtual prototyping of new products, systems and interventions.

He has developed and launched “Bradford Observatory” – a multi- agency intelligence hub for Bradford District – a digital platform for transformational improvement in the delivery of Council and partner services in collaboration with citizens.

Eric has also developed the pioneering use of GIS for community engagement
and empowerment through the nationally recognised ‘Bradford Community
Statistics Project’.

Jennifer gained a Masters degrees in Information Science and Marketing and has over 20 years of experience of working at the interface of university-industry collaboration, across multiple disciplines. Previous roles include corporate training, leading on university consultancy, collaborative R&D and delivery of SME support programmes. She was course manager for a professional Masters programme within Computing, Engineering & Mathematics, and devised and delivered collaborative programmes for both the Pensions Regulator and the NHS Business Services Authority’s data security and analytics teams. Jennifer also led on development of a creative tech partnership with Indian SMEs and regional stake-holders and was the business lead for the university as academic partner in the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton and 5G Brighton. She is
currently the SME engagement lead for a big data project with Gatwick Airport, working with businesses to develop data-driven products and services.

Jennifer has a particular interest in developing new approaches and flexible models for collaboration, and leads on university/industry collaboration in the technology space across multiple domains with specific expertise in immersive, virtualisation and simulation, big data, cybersecurity and complex systems.

Kevin has over 30 years experience in automotive and aerospace product and business development in the private and public sectors. With a background in engineering simulation and optimization, his passion is promoting research and impact in safe, efficient and accessible forms of mobility.

As Director of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Automotive Research
at Coventry University he is responsible for the strategic direction and growth of
the Centre’s research into future mobility systems and their interaction with the
environment. His role includes developing and managing strategic relationships
with external partners in particular Horiba MIRA and our co-located facility ‘ASSURED CAV (Highway)’ created to test autonomous vehicles at the limit of their operation.

CCAAR is focussed on; providing an environment to simulate, test and evaluate the security and safety of Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV); Undertaking research to accelerate the development of new products and services in the CAV segment and to produce a pipeline of talent to support growth of the CAV segment.

His activity and interests currently centre on working with the Automotive Council’s Intelligent Connected and Automated Mobility mission, helping develop frameworks and methodologies for verification and validation of new products and processes in the digital environment and the attendant regulatory and human considerations.

He currently chairs the Research Advisory Board for the Automotive Electronic Systems Innovation Network, part of Techworks, and is a member of the interoperability and marketing groups at Zenzic, which champion the UK’s connected and self-driving vehicle ecosystem.

After graduating with a degree in Materials Science, Clint went onto study a PhD in Metal Matrix Composites followed by a research fellowship developing testing standards for hip implants at the University of Southampton. A number of years in industry then followed working in the Advanced Metals Section at QinetiQ and the Structural Integrity Group at TWI. Whilst at TWI Clint developed a keen interest in the more business, commercial and customer side of engineering and technology. He returned to Southampton in 2008 and has gone onto use his deep understanding of ‘the external big picture landscape’, coupled with his technical background, industrial experience and business skills to carve out a unique role within the Faculty to win, lead and deliver large strategic research & innovation investments.

He brings together industry & business, with engineering & academia at a strategic level, to facilitate research translation and knowledge exchange into socio-economic Impact (his real passion). In the last few years Clint has also worked with Low & Middle Income Countries looking to tackle antimicrobial resistance, developing a personal respirator for healthcare workers and with The Alex Lewis Trust/Wild Wheelchairs supporting an assistive device workshop in Ethiopia.

Clint himself acts as the Managing Director of the £14m Future Towns Innovation Hub that has the vison of facilitating ‘happy, healthy and prosperous towns’ in partnership with the EM3 LEP. The Hub has already undertaken a Future Mobility Demonstrator project with Basingstoke and Dean Borough Council, WSP and the Centre for Towns looking at re-allocation of road space, micro-mobility and a ‘smart shopper’ App. Clint and the Hub are also well connected into the £48m National Infrastructure Laboratory at our Bolderwood Innovation Campus and the wider UK Collaboratorium for Research into Infrastructure and Cities of which Southampton is a founder member.

Vicki Ayton is a Business Development Manager within the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Chester. She supports two research areas, the Centre for Research into Environmental Science and Technology (a £2.1 million ERDF business innovation programme) and the Department of Maths and Physical Sciences.

Her experience spans public, private and not for profit sectors, as well as further and higher education. Vicki has supported and leads on a number of industry and academic collaborative research projects in relation to environmental science, and has experience in securing research and innovation funding.

During the last 3 years whilst working at the University of Chester, Vicki has successfully led on the development and delivery of a number of academic and business forums, knowledge transfer opportunities and events, attracting both SME’s and larger organisations to collaborate with the University. This includes the development of the Smart Rural event series which highlights research and innovation opportunities for rurally focussed economic, societal, and environmental challenges. Themes include; digital, transport, construction, water, energy and skills. Responding to labour market demand, the levelling up agenda and encouraging inclusivity, she is also involved in the development of an MSc in Data Science in partnership with local private and public
sector employers, funded by the Institute of Coding, and a Sustainability Innovation Hub in Shropshire with the private sector, both of which take a collaborative approach with the University.

Further to the above, other areas of research Vicki supports includes, areas relating to sustainability including industrial decarbonisation, net zero places, circular economy, environmental monitoring, LCA, and the built environment.

Steven is a Senior Business Development Manager within the Power Networks
Demonstration Centre (PNDC), as part of the University of Strathclyde. He received his MSc in Local Economic Development from the University of Glasgow and is currently studying for an MBA within the University of Strathclyde Business School.

With experience in business development and customer facing roles across the public and private sector, Steven possess a deep understanding of developing winning bids and proposals with a range of clients and partners. He has developed an expanded network across industry, government, and academia, with a focus on low carbon energy systems and transport.

In his current role he is working closely with a number of industrial partners as
‘members’ of the PNDC, and in support of commercially delivered research, testing, and demonstration projects. The PNDC is a unique facility offering a real-world environment for the de-risking and validation of new technologies prior to their commercial deployment in energy networks across the UK and internationally.

Steven’s role is critical in identifying opportunities for inter-organisational partnership and collaborative working with the aim of decarbonising the energy and transport sectors. He works closely with existing partners including utilities, generators, technology vendors and highly innovative SMEs.

A key initiative that Steven is leading is in the PNDC’s involvement within UKRI’s ‘Driving the Electric Revolution’ (DER) challenge area. This will see the establishment of four DER industrialisation centres across the UK.

Dr Jack Stilgoe is an associate professor in science and technology policy at University College London where he researches the governance of emerging technologies. He is principal investigator of the ESRC Driverless Futures project from 2019-2021. This project is looking to anticipate the politics of self-driving cars.

He worked with EPSRC and ESRC to develop a framework for responsible innovation, which is now being used by the Research Councils. Among other publications, he is the author of ‘Who’s Driving Innovation?’ (2020, Palgrave) and ‘Experiment Earth: Responsible innovation in geoengineering’ (2015, Routledge). He previously worked in science and technology policy at the Royal Society and the think tank Demos. He is a fellow of the Turing Institute and a Trustee of Involve, a public participation think tank.

Marcelo is an Industrial Fellow at the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education, working with R&D projects on innovation introduction and management, and the implementation of new technologies in future railway systems. He is also a member of the Innovation Management Special Interest Group at the Institute of Engineering and Technology.

He has worked on many research projects involving new methodologies for radical change in complex urban systems, horizon scanning, and normative scenario building strategies. A former TED speaker, Marcelo holds an MSc in Transport Planning and a PhD in Railway Systems Engineering. With a background in Industrial Design, he has since published various articles on the future of sustainable mobility and radically innovative transport systems.

Andy is a lecturer and business development associate within the Quantum Technology Innovation Centre. He is involved in the education and development of scientifically leaning entrepreneurs seeking to establish their own deep tech companies through the QTEC programme at Bristol. Andy is responsible for building networks within the quantum technology community for both the Bristol PhD centre for doctoral training and for companies operating within the Innovation centre and as part of the larger UK Quantum Technology Strategy Programme. The Innovation Centre is a local government backed accelerator seeking to help deep tech companies grow both their businesses
and work out where emergent and disruptive technologies sit in supply chains. Adjacent to this Andy has been a mentor on the I.E.C.T Summer School, Ideas to Innovation in Cranfield and the Bristol New Enterprise Competition. Andy is also a visiting professor at the Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan as part of the WISE international sustainability project.

He gained his PhD in bio-inorganic nanomaterials chemistry at the University of
Bristol in 2004. Andy has previously the Industrial Research Fellow for the Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials where he acted as an interface between the BCFN and their industrial partners. Andy is also the founder of SurfaceRF, a company specialising in tamper-proof enclosures and author of the “Nanotechnology Cookbook” published by Elsevier.

Hitesh Patel’s role includes overseeing the Business Development team at Brunel University London. He has specific responsibility for looking after and supporting activities in the area of Advanced Manufacturing and Automotive.

Hitesh has worked in a commercial (Redland Ltd and David Ball Ltd), public sector (EPSRC, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)) and academic environment (Queen Mary College, Royal Holloway College, Open University, Anglia Ruskin University, Brunel University London), through which he has acquired experience of managing research and innovation activities.
While at EPSRC he was seconded to DTI and looked after the then SMART awards and the Faraday Centres. At EPSRC, Hitesh has managed major activities including a £12M EPSRC Polymer’s grants portfolio and a £2M Partnership in Plastics Initiative at the then DTI.

At The Open University he developed the strategy and managed £870k HEIF funding. He has been involved in large scale research and innovation activities such as a successful £8M Smart Cities HEFCE Catalyst bid, £1M bid to the Leverhulme Doctoral Scheme and a £1.3M HEFCE Police Knowledge Fund bid.
At his last University, work involved developing a partnership to secure a £5.8M Additive Manufacturing centre and establishing a regional engagement strategy which included looking at a feasibility study to setup an Open University Innovation Centre. More recently at Brunel University he was involved closely in two H2020 bids and several other bids, including the British Council and Innovate UK GCRF Impact call.

On a regional level he has engaged with the Local Enterprise Partnerships, the Catapults and promoted the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). To broaden his perspective of technology transfer activities he visited three Universities in Canada.