Confirmed speakers

Dave Blank is full professor in Inorganic Materials Science and the scientific director of MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente. MESA+ host over 500 scientists with an annual budget over 50 MEuro.

His research is based upon growth studies, deposition and structuring techniques, and properties of complex materials, especially oxides.

His research group consists of 20 PhD students, 5 postdoc’s and 3 scientific staff members. He has over 240 papers in refereed journals and was supervisor of 29 PhD graduations.

In addition to his scientific work, he is very active in popularizing science. Some of activities he is involved in include: speaking on different occasions to introduce the beauty of science, in particular nanotechnology; being editor-in-chief of www.natuurkunde.nl and www.sciencespace.nl (websites that help pupils in solving physical problems); chairing Science Café Enschede.

Susan E. Cozzens is Associate Dean for Research in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, and a professor in the School of Public Policy. She has been active in science and innovation policy for over 25 years. She served the U.S. National Science Foundation as a policy analyst and later Director of the Office of Policy Support and member of the senior leadership team. She has consulted widely within the United States and around the world on science and innovation policy issues. She is past editor of Research Evaluation and Science, Technology, & Human Values, and senior consulting editor for Science and Public Policy. She has published over fifty articles and book chapters and authored or edited five books. Her current research is on innovation and inequality, with a focus on science and innovation policies in developing countries.

Kees Eijkel is CEO of Kennispark Twente, the shell for commercialization in and around the University of Twente and Saxion University, in cooperation with the province of Overijssel and the city of Enschede on behalf of the cities in the region. As managing director of the University Holding, Kees manages the university’s participations. He has actively supported many new start-up firms. He holds a number of executive and non-executive positions in foundations and companies involved in innovation. He is board member and past president of the international Micro an Nano Commercialization Education Foundation MANCEF. Before Kennispark, Kees was technical-commercial director of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology. He holds an M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Amsterdam and a Ph.D. in Technical Sciences from the University of Twente.

Aard J. Groen is professor of Innovative Entrepreneurship, scientific director of NIKOS (the Netherlands Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship) and department chair of the department Business Administration at the School of management and governance at the University of Twente (the Netherlands). NIKOS research focuses on knowledge intensive entrepreneurship in networks and contributes to IGS, the Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies, where Groen is leading the research on “Innovation & Entrepreneurship”. Groen is also academic director of Venture Lab Twente, a business development facility for high tech start-ups and business accelerator.

Groen published in journals and books e.g. Journal of Management, International Journal of Small Business, Creativity and Innovation Management. Topics are positioned in entrepreneurship, marketing, university-industry interaction and innovation & technology dynamics.

Stefan Kuhlmann is professor of foundations of Science, Technology and Society. He is Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Policy Studies (STəPS).

His recent research projects include Dutch, German as well as European Union projects, e.g.“Research and Innovation Futures 2030: From explorative to transformative scenarios”; “Future scenarios of innovation journeys in genomics & health care”; “The co-evolution of sectoral and industry structures and nanotechnologies”, “Practices, institutionalization and impact of responsible innovation in nanotechnology”, “Governance of promises and risks in nanotechnology”;“Governance of international research collaboration in nano S&T in Europe”; the study of “Knowledge dynamics and ERA integration. He also serves as external advisor to a number of international projects.

Stefan publishes widely in the field of research and innovation policy studies. He is a co-editor of Research Policy (the leading journal in the field), an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy (IJFIP), on the Editorial Boards of Science and Public Policy, of Asian Research Policy, on the Editorial Advisory Board of Evaluation, The International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, and on the Editorial Board of Zeitschrift für Evaluation.

Philippe Larédo is Directeur de Recherche at the recently created Université de Paris-Est (Ecole des Ponts, LATTS) and professor at the University of Manchester (MBS, Manchester Institute of Innovation Research). He is also a board member of the new French institute on research and innovation in society (IFRIS). His main role at Manchester deals with the PhD programme (60 PhD students in the public and private management of science, technology and innovation).

His research interests are on new emerging sciences and breakthrough innovation and on research and innovation policies. On the former, recent work looks at the worldwide dynamics of nano science and technology, and more broadly at the creation of new epistemic communities in emerging sciences & technologies. On the latter, his focus is on institutional change (especially within public research) and on the development of new evaluation approaches to the ‘effects’ of public research. He has also coordinated the European Network of Excellence, PRIME, and is a co-funder of the two international associations that follow the Prime network: EU SPRI Forum for studies of policies for research and innovation and ENID the international association of indicator designers.

M. Paloma Sánchez is Professor of Applied Economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She is currently the Director of an Interuniversity Master and PhD Programme on Economics and Management of Innovation and the holder of the UAM-Accenture Chair in Economics and Management of Innovation. She was the central co-ordinator of the MERITUM research project and the E*KNOW-NET thematic network funded by the European Commission. These activities involved Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management issues and their effect on innovation. She has represented the Spanish Government on the Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy of the OECD for 15 years, chairing this Committee from 1990 until 1993. She has been member of several High Level Expert Groups set up by the European Commission on innovation related issues. Her main research and publications are related to intellectual capital as a driver of innovation, the economics of innovation, technology transfer and innovation and technological and innovation policies.

James Powell, Eur Ing Emeritus Professor James A Powell OBE, DSc,

CEng, BSc, MSc, PhD, AUMIST, FIOA, FIMgt, FCMI, FRSA, FCIOB,. FASI, MInst D., MInstKT

UK Academic Director of the PASCAL Universities for a Modern Renaissance Programme; Ambassador for Social Entrepreneurship in Higher Education and Ambassador for the Leonardo European Corporate Learning Awards; Director of UPBEAT, UPBEAT (Manchester) Ltd and Smart City Futures and Member of the New Club of Paris; A Chartered European Engineer with specialisation in Design, Academic Enterprise, Human Communications and Team Building.

He was managing director of Britain’s first commercial videodisc company and a Pro Vice Chancellor (Enterprise and Regional Affairs) responsible for Salford University’s “Reach Out” initiatives. He is now Professor Emeritus at Salford, presently working on the leadership, governance and management of university Reach-out to business and the community. He is also presently developing his notion of ‘Universities for a Modern Renaissance’ for, and with, the Board Members of the PASCAL International Observatory for place management, social capital and learning regions; this idea will be used to focus their developing strategy for university engagement. On the 15th June 1996, in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, he was awarded the OBE for "services to science and to engineering research and education".

Bart Van Looy is professor for Innovation and Organization at K.U.Leuven and has a (part-time) research affiliation at the University of Twente. In addition, he teaches at the MBA program of Flanders Business School (Antwerp) where he also acts as scientific coordinator. Bart Van Looy is co-promotor of ECOOM (responsible for the service and research activities pertaining to Technometrics/Patent Analysis) and responsible for the research activities of INCENTIM (Research division K.U.Leuven R&D) which conducts applied and basic research in the field of innovation, technology and knowledge intensive entrepreneurship (in close collaboration with a.o. Eurostat and DG Research (EC)).

His current research focuses on innovation processes (firm level) and regional innovation systems (Entrepreneurial Universities and Science -Technology interactions). Bart has published on these topics in journals like Research Policy, Journal of Product and Innovation Management, Organization Studies, R&D Management, Technovation, Scientometrics, Journal of Technology Transfer, Academy of Management Journal and Regional Studies.