Judges
Chris Evans
Interim Director of Innovation, Impact and Business, University of Exeter.
Chris is Interim Director of Innovation, Impact and Business and Director of Regional Engagement within the Innovation, Impact and Business Department at the University of Exeter. Chris is responsible for the University’s regional strategy, including liaison with regional stakeholders and supporting the University’s role as an anchor institution in Exeter and the wider South West Peninsula.
An economist who joined the University as director of the Marchmont Observatory, she currently works closely with strategic agencies on policy and strategy, and leads on the development of regional strategic and transformational projects.
Jamie Cole
Global Lead Client Partner, IBM.
Jamie Cole is Global Lead Client Partner at IBM. He is an experienced client lead with over 25 years’ experience shaping and executing delivery of complex system integration projects, especially in the areas of global ERP, HR and data-led transformations – all using local and offshore project development resource.
An Exeter Alumnus, Jamie is a Partnership Executive for University of Exeter’s strategic partnership with IBM, and recently won the Nicholas Bull Alumni Award for his outstanding voluntary work in this area. His achievements include supervising MBA projects, providing guest lectures and chairing the Exeter MBA’s Business Insights Group.
Professor Gabriella Giannachi
Professor in Performance and New Media, University of Exeter.
Gabriella Giannachi, FRSA, MAE, is Professor in Performance and New Media, and Director of the Centre for Intermedia and Creative Technologies at the University of Exeter.
Over the last five years she has been researching projects in partnership with: Tate, the Science Museum Group, The Natural History Museum, The Photographers Gallery, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, and Exeter City FC Supporters Trust, to name a few. She is a member of the Advisory Group of the ECFC Museum, which she helped to create.
Camilla Hampshire
Museums Manager, Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM).
Camilla Hampshire studied History of Art at New Hall, University of Cambridge and postgraduate Museum and Art Gallery Studies at University of Manchester. A series of curatorial roles took her the length of the UK deepening her professional experience. At Sheffield City Museums and Art Gallery, Camilla was part of the management team which oversaw the services’ transfer to charitable trust, becoming the Trust’s project coordinator for the development of the Millennium Galleries opening in April 2001.
Camilla has been Museums Manager of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter since April 2001 with a key focus of the role being the Museum’s £24 million capital development project, completed in 2011. The refurbishment, extension and redisplay of Exeter City Council’s museum led to its recognition as Art Fund Prize Museum of the Year 2012. The judges described the Museum as “magical” and “some of the most intelligently considered displays on view in any museum in the UK”.
Camilla’s role has widened in recent years to include strategic support for the City’s cultural sector, playing a key role in the formation and development of Exeter Cultural Partnership, a broad alliance including the University, shaping exciting plans for the future of the City and region.
Sean Fielding RTTP
Programme Director, University of Exeter.
Sean Fielding RTTP is Programme Director at the University of Exeter. From 2019-2021 Sean was Chair of PraxisAuril, the UK’s national association for knowledge exchange professionals and a board member of the global Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals (ATTP), which promotes the RTTP World-wide standard. I have been a previous Vice-President of the Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals, ASTP, and a member of the Board of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership and of Exeter Science Park.
Sean has undertaken several Director-level roles at the University of Exeter. Previously, he worked for national University bodies, where set up and led joint-ventures for commercialising and marketing national and international HE services. He has also been Managing Director and Director of several companies, and is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP).
Malcolm Skingle
Director of Academic Liaison, GlaxoSmithKline.
Malcolm Skingle has BSc in Pharmacology / Biochemistry and a PhD in Neuropharmacology. He has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 35 years and has gained a wide breadth of experience in the management of research activities. He has more than 60 publications including articles on the interface between industry and academia.
For more than a decade he has managed Academic Liaison at GSK managing staff in Stevenage, Research Triangle Park and Philadelphia. His role involves close liaison with several groups outside the Company e.g. Government Departments, Research and Funding Councils, Small Biotechnology Companies and other science-driven organisations. He sits on many external bodies including the BBSRC Strategy Board, the East of England RDA Science and Industry Council, the CBI academic liaison group and several UK University Department advisory groups. He also chairs several groups including the BBSRC Bioscience for Industry Panel, the Diamond (Synchotron) Industrial Advisory Board, the Inner Core Lambert working group on boilerplate agreements and the ABPI Innovation Advisory team. Malcolm was awarded a CBE in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of his contribution to the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr Iain Thomas
Chair of PraxisAuril and Head of Life Sciences, Cambridge Enterprise.
Iain Thomas is Chair of PraxisAuril, the UK’s national association for knowledge exchange professionals. He is also Head of Life Sciences at Cambridge Enterprise, responsible for a team that is working across the life sciences sector – from human health therapeutics to agritech and research tools. Iain has a PhD in Organic Chemistry (Sydney) and MBA (Cambridge). He joined Cambridge Enterprise in November 2003.
The team has spun-out companies including X01 Therapeutics, Apcintex (now a Centessa company), DIOSynVax, NoBACZ Healthcare, Predictimmune Limited, PhoreMost, Z-factor and Cambridge Epigenetix. Iain, with colleagues from partner universities, founded Apollo Therapeutics, a £40 million fund in early stage drug development and launched the Ceres Agritech Knowledge Exchange Partnership. Iain also led discussions with GSK in respect of the University of Cambridge-GSK open innovation drug discovery initiative based at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.
Professor Paul Francis
Associate Dean Research for the College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter.
Paul Francis joined the University of Exeter in January 2019 to work on supporting human translational research in the field of neurodegeneration, particularly related to dementia. He comes with a wealth of experience in the biochemistry of dementia from cell systems, through animal models to the study of brain, blood and CSF in man. Paul has lead and participated in large EU-funded projects and was Director of the Brains for Dementia Research project for 10 years. Paul already had a number of existing collaborations with colleagues in Exeter that he will develop further.
Since 1st September 2019, Paul has been the interim Associate Dean Research for the College of Medicine and Health. In this role he supports the College and its staff in our combined research ambitions and overall to enhance the great profile of Exeter in the area of health and medicine.
Paul maintains a 20% FTE at King’s College London and will use some of this time to maintain his research collaborations with Exeter colleagues.
Professor John Love
Professor of Synthetic Biology, University of Exeter.
John Love is Professor of Synthetic Biology at the University of Exeter, which he joined as a lecturer in 2003. John’s research team is diverse and employs a multidisciplinary combination of technologies to investigate a range of questions, including the production of ‘Fourth Generation’ biofuels, the biology of hydrocarbon-producing planktonic alga, and AI and machine-guided experimentation to engineer novel functions in bacteria.
Industrial engagement and open innovation are recurring themes in John’s research. He has developed close partnerships with various companies, guiding and co-creating projects to exploit new business opportunities within defined techno-economic frameworks. As a BBSRC-funded Industry Exchange Fellow, John led Shell's photosynthetic microbial biofuels research programme. He understands first-hand the role open innovation and knowledge exchange can play in scoping and achieving realistic and productive outcomes. That direct experience benefits from his solid theoretical foundations from studying at Harvard Business School.
John won the European Biophysics Award at the Società Italiana di Fisica International School of Physics for his work on perfluorocarbons in microscopy (2010), the RDA / EU-sponsored Smart Solutions Excellence with Impact Award for the development of a novel photobioreactor for enhanced algal growth (2012), the Exeter Impact Award for Outstanding Impact in Technology (2013) and was a finalist of the BBSRC Innovator of the Year Award for his work on 4G Biofuels (2014 and 2016).