We are delighted to profile below some of the speakers who will feature at this year's Conference. The full list of speakers can be viewed in the draft programme.
Prof Trevor McMillan: KE Framework Champion and Vice-Chancellor of Keele University.
Professor Trevor McMillan is the KE Framework Champion and Vice-Chancellor of Keele University.
He joined Keele as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost in January 2014, and was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at Lancaster University. He has considerable experience in leading major academic developments and partnerships with other Universities and external organisations in the UK and overseas.
Dr David Secher: Senior Bursar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Dr David Secher co-founded PraxisUnico and is its patron. He won the Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion in 2007. He is the Senior Bursar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and also advises universities and governments on knowledge transfer and intellectual property, in the UK and abroad.
Dr Robert Sorrell: Vice President for Public Partnerships, BP
Dr Robert Sorrell is Vice President for Public Partnerships at BP. He is the Associate Director for the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials, a 10-year $100m investment by BP with the hub at the University of Manchester and spokes at the University of Cambridge, Imperial College and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Robert is also BP’s technology policy advisor for the UK and EU.
Sam Chadwick: Head of Partnerships, BBC Research & Development
Sam Chadwick is responsible for managing strategic partnerships for BBC Research & Development (BBC R&D). She was appointed as an Impact Assessor for the REF (Research Excellence Framework) by UK Government and assesses the impact that research (carried out by Higher Education) has had beyond academia.
Dr Lesley Thompson, Director of Academic and Government Strategic Alliances, UK, Elsevier.
Dr Lesley Thompson is Director of Academic and Government Strategic Alliances, UK, at academic publishing company Elsevier.
Previously she worked as Programme Director at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), where she was responsible for managing the overall EPSRC portfolio. This included commissioning around £800 million per year for research and postgraduate training in engineering and the physical sciences and managing EPSRC’s relationships with the research base.
Further profiles coming soon include: Professor Graeme Reid, Professor of Science and Research Policy, University College London and Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy; Prof Tim Dafforn, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; Charlotte Heyes, Deputy Director, Innovation & Place, at Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; David Docherty, CEO of the National Centre for Universities and. Business (NCUB).