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Membership of EPSRC Council

Members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills and are drawn from both the academic and industrial communities. Membership is reviewed each year. The council has a chief executive and a part-time chairman.

Jeremy Clayton, Group Director, Science and Innovation Group, attends our council meetings on behalf of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

Current Membership of EPSRC Council

Biographies of Council members

Dr Paul Golby - CBE, FREng (Independent) - Chair EPSRC

Dr Paul Golby is a fellow and Council Member of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and the Energy Institute.

He was awarded an honorary degree from Aston University in 2007 and Cranfield University in 2008, and was appointed Pro-Chancellor of Aston University and Chair of Council in January 2009.

Prime Minister's Council: appointed as a member of the Council for Science and Technology, commencing from June 2011 to end December 2013.

Non Executive Career
  • Chairman AEA Technology plc (appointed Nov 2010)
  • Non Executive Director National Grid plc (appointed Feb 2012)
  • Became Chairman of Engineering UK in September 2010, an independent organisation that promotes the vital contribution of engineers, engineering and technology in our society
  • Appointed as a Member of the Council for Science and Technology in June 2011
  • Member of the Board of Trustees of the UK Green Building Council
Executive Career

Chairman and Chief Executive of E.ON UK plc: Following a series of management appointments with Dunlop and BTR, he joined the Board of the 'mini conglomerate' Clayhithe plc in 1992. Joining East Midlands Electricity in 1998, he became Chief Executive of E.ON UK (formerly Powergen) in 2002. He retired from E.ON in December 2011.

Professor David Delpy - FMedSci, FRS, FREng (Chief Executive EPSRC)

Professor David Delpy is the Chief Executive of EPSRC. He took up the appointment on 1 September 2007. He has been Vice-Provost for Research since 1999 at University College London. He was Head of the Medical Physics and Bioengineering Department at UCL from 1992 to 1999. He became Hamamatsu Professor of Medical Photonics in 1991, a Senior Lecturer at UCL in 1986, and a Principal Physicist in 1982. In 1976 he was appointed as a Senior Physicist at University College Hospital. His interests have continued to lie in the field of physiological monitoring, and especially in the development of techniques for the non-invasive monitoring of tissue oxygenation and metabolism.

Professor Anne Anderson - OBE (University of Glasgow)

Professor Anne Anderson, MA, PhD, OBE is Head of the College of Social Sciences and Vice-Principal at the University of Glasgow She is a Glasgow graduate and a psychologist interested in human communication and the impacts of new information and communication technologies. In 2008 she was appointed to the Council of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and has held various national roles including Director of the £7 million People at the Centre of Information and communication technologies (PACCIT) programme (2006-06) funded by ESRC, EPSRC and the DTI and Director of the ESRC Cognitive Engineering programme (1995-2000). In 2002 she was awarded an O.B.E for services to social science.

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Professor Andrew Blake - FRS, FREng (Microsoft Research Ltd)

Andrew Blake is a Microsoft Distinguished Scientist and the Managing Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge. He joined the company in 1999 as a Senior Researcher to found the Computer Vision group, becoming Deputy Managing Director at the lab in 2008 before assuming his current position 2010.

Andrew trained in mathematics and electrical engineering at Cambridge and studied for a doctorate in Artificial Intelligence in Edinburgh. He was an academic for 18 years, latterly a Professor at Oxford University, where he was a pioneer in the development of the theory and algorithms that can make it possible for computers to behave as seeing machines.

In 2011, he and colleagues at Microsoft received the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award for their machine learning contribution to Microsoft Kinect human motion-capture.

Jack Boyer (Entrepreneur)

Mr Boyer is Chairman of materials development company Ilika plc, biomedical materials company Altrika ltd and biotechnology company iQur ltd. A serial entrepreneur, he founded and was CEO of pan-European engineering group TCG which he grew to €300 million sales and has run companies in telecommunications and construction engineering. Prior to that he was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and strategy consultant at Bain & Co. He chairs the University of Southampton's intellectual property commercialization company SAM and is a board member of the Higher Education Funding Council's Research Evaluation Framework.

Mr Boyer is a Trustee of sustainable development and educational charities and a member of the University of Southampton Council. Educated at Stanford University (BA), the London School of Economics (M.Sc) and Insead (MBA), he is fluent in six languages.

Professor Anthony Finkelstein - FREng, FCGI (University College London)

Anthony Finkelstein is a graduate in systems engineering. He is Professor of Software Systems Engineering at University College London (UCL) and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the City & Guilds of London Institute. He is currently Dean of UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences. He was formerly Head of UCL Department of Computer Science. He is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and at the National Institute for Informatics, Tokyo, Japan. He is a Fellow of both the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) and the British Computer Society (BCS) and has been active professionally in both, serving on numerous Boards and Committees. His research is in the area of software development processes and on the construction of large computational models. In 2009 he received the Oliver Lodge Medal of the IET for achievement in Information Technology. He has been recognised for his contributions to the field of requirements engineering and for his professional service by the IEEE and the ACM. He served on the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise in Computer Science & Informatics and currently serves on the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. He was a member of the Committee of Visitors for the US National Science Foundation. He has provided consultancy advice to a large number of high profile companies and government organisations. He has acted as an expert in complex technology disputes and frequently technology due diligence on start-up companies working with leading VC and other investors. He has established three successful ‘spinout’ companies providing respectively professional services, product software and an innovative software service. He has a widely read blog 'Serious Engineering’ commenting on issues in engineering, technology and education.

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Professor John Fisher - FMedSci, CBE (University of Leeds)

Professor Fisher has over 25 years experience in Medical Engineering research, and has published over 350 journal papers in this field. His work is supported by major collaborative programme funding from EPSRC (Programme, Platform, IKC and DTC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Wellcome Trust, EU (ERC) and Industry. He has key international collaborations in USA, Europe, China and Japan.

Professor Fisher's research and innovation involves medical devices, biomaterials and tissue engineering solutions to support the ageing population aiming to provide "fifty active years after fifty". He has built the largest academic facility in the world for pre clinical study of the function of artificial joints, and has been successful in desgning and developing longer lasting joint replacements, now used world wide. He is co-inventor of a portfolio of novel biological scaffolds with regenerative capacity for tissue repair and restoration of function, which have reached successful clinical application in the cardiovascular system. He is academic founder and Director of two University spin out companies, (one is AIM listed) and retained consultant to a major healthcare company.

Professor Fisher's current research is focussing on pre clinical functional simulation systems for natural joints and tissue engineering interventions and on development of regenerative biological scaffolds for the musculoskeletal system. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was awarded a CBE for services to biomedical engineering in the 2011 New Years Honours list.

Professor Sir Richard Friend - FRS, FREng (University of Cambridge)

Professor Sir Richard is the Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge and has considerable experience both within academia and also the world of business. He has pioneered the physics, materials science and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconducting polymers.

His research group was the first to demonstrate using polymers efficient operation of field-effect transistors and light-emitting diodes. These advances revealed that the semiconductor properties of this broad class of materials are unexpectedly clean, so that semiconductor devices can both reveal their novel semiconductor physics, including their operation in efficient photovoltaic diodes, optically-pumped lasing, directly-printed polymer transistor circuits and light-emitting transistors.

Professor Vernon Gibson FRS (Chief Scientific Adviser, Ministry of Defence)

Professor Vernon Gibson is Chief Scientific Adviser at the Ministry of Defence and an ex officio member of EPSRC Council.

Prior to joining MOD he had gained wide experience in industry and academia. Between 2008-2012 he was Chief Chemist at BP plc where he provided leadership to the Company’s large chemical technology community. In academia, he was latterly the Sir Edward Frankland Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Imperial College which followed a period at the University of Durham first as Lecturer then as Professor of Chemistry. In 2008, he co-founded the Materials Science Company, Plaxica, which is developing novel technology for the production of bio-renewable materials.

Throughout his career, he has worked at the interface of academia and industry, leading a number of ground-breaking relationships which have brought academic and industrial scientists together. He was elected to the Royal Society in 2004 and received an honorary DSc from the University of Sheffield in 2010.

Professor Andrew Hamilton - FRS (University of Oxford)

Professor Andrew Hamilton has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford since October 2009. He read chemistry at Exeter University, has a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He joined Yale in 1997; was Provost from 2004-2008, combining administrative duties with teaching and research. In addition to serving as Provost, he was Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.

Professor Hamilton's research interests lie at the interface of organic and biological chemistry, with particular focus on the use of synthetic design for the understanding, mimicry and potential disruption of biological processes.

In 1999, Professor Hamilton received the Arthur C Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and in 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.

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Professor Richard Jones - University of Sheffield

Richard Jones has a first degree and PhD in Physics from Cambridge University, and following postdoctoral work at Cornell University, U.S.A., he was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. In 1998 he moved to the University of Sheffield, and in 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is an experimental polymer physicist who specialises in elucidating the nanoscale structure and properties of polymers and biological macromolecules at interfaces. He has written extensively on the wider issues surrounding nanotechnology. He was the co-author of a report published by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, The Social and Economic Challenges of Nanotechnology (2003). He chaired the Nanotechnology Engagement Group, a body set up by UK Government to support the development of best practice in public engagement around nanotechnologies, and to ensure that public engagement feeds into policy and decision-making. He was the Senior Strategic Advisor for Nanotechnology for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council from 2007 to 2009. Richard is the author of more than 150 research papers, and three books, the most recent of which is Soft Machines: nanotechnology and life, published by Oxford University Press in 2004.

Professor Dame Julia King - DEB, FREng (Aston University)

Professor Julia King has a distinguished background in academia and business. She spent sixteen years as a researcher and university lecturer at Cambridge and Nottingham universities before joining Rolls-Royce in 1994 where she held a number of senior executive appointments.

In 2002 Julia became Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics, and two years later returned to academia as Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College, London. In December 2006 she became Vice-Chancellor of Aston University.

A member of the Board of UniversitiesUK and Chair of its Employability, Business and Industry Policy Network, and Chair of the Higher Education Statistics Agency, Julia regularly advises Government on education and technology issues.

She is a non-executive director of the Department for Business Innovation & Skills and a member of the Committee on Climate Change.

Dr Helen Neville - Procter and Gamble

Dr Helen Neville is Vice President, Corporate R&D at Procter and Gamble. She joined P&G in 1987 with a degree in Chemistry (Durham University) and PhD in Organic Chemistry (University of Southampton). She has led global innovation programs for P&G across multiple consumer goods businesses including assembled paper products as well as formulated beauty and household products. Her experience covers upstream research through to market delivery and all the aspects of consumer research, product design, process development and packaging. She currently leads P&G’s global Packaging Organization and is responsible for the oversight and governance of the 8 technical centers in Europe. In addition she leads P&G’s external innovation program which includes strategic partnerships with major UK universities. Helen has lived and worked in the UK, Belgium and Germany. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

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Professor John Perkins - CBE, FREng (Chief Scientific Advisor, Department for Business Innovation and Skills)

Professor Perkins is the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills; he took up this appointment in January 2012. Prior to this he was Provost at the MASDAR Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi (2009-10) leading the development of this new institution. Professor Perkins' distinguished academic career includes service as Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, The University of Manchester (2004-9); Principal, Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College (2001-4) and ICI Australia Professor of Process Systems Engineering, University of Sydney (1985-88). He gained this PhD from Imperial College in 1977. In 2006 he was awarded a CBE for services to science and engineering, was Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2007-10 and has served on a large number of professional boards, commissions and panels.

Professor Roy Sambles - FRS (University of Exeter)

Professor Roy Sambles has been Professor of Experimental Physics at The University of Exeter since 1991. His early research concerned Conduction Electron Spin resonance and spin waves in the alkali metals. He now explores the electromagnetic properties of metamaterials, holding several patents in this area. He was awarded the George Gray medal of the British Liquid Crystal Society in 1998, the Young Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics in 2003, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. In addition to his research activities he is presently a member of: the Scientific Advisory Committee for IoP publishing; the editorial board of ‘Thin Solid Films’; the Defence Scientific Advisory Council; and the Counter Terrorism Science and Technology Centre Oversight Board.

Dr David Watson (IBM UK Ltd)

Dr David Watson is Director, Emerging Technology at IBM's Hursley Laboratory in Hampshire. His main interest is in bringing new software technologies to market by working closely with customers and IBM Research and Development teams worldwide. The current technology foci in his area are: data analysis/understanding, sensor networks, data federation, and data security. David is also the UK lead on the International Technology Alliance in Network Sciences, a joint UK/US government funded programme of research into the fundamental foundations of network theory and associated technologies. This, and many other aspects of the work in his team, are collaborative efforts with major UK universities. His technical background is in computer graphics, image processing, and data visualization. David also chairs the RCUK Digital Economy Programme Advisory Board.

Professor Jeremy Watson - FREng (Arup)

Jeremy Watson is Arup's Global Research Director, responsible for Arup's Global Research Strategy and the Research Consulting Business. In November 2009, Jeremy was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Communities & Local Government (DCLG).

Jeremy has held research and technical management roles in industry and academe including service with the DTI, DIUS and EPSRC. His specialties include Strategic Technology Development and Transfer, Innovation Processes and NPD Management. Jeremy is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the IET, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, a Senior Member of the IEEE and Visiting Professor at the Universities of Southampton and Sussex. Jeremy is a former Board member of the UK Government Technology Strategy Board, and a member of the HEFCE Research & Innovation Committee. Jeremy was a founding member of the Institute for Sustainability.

In May 2010 Jeremy was appointed to the Board of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB).

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