Training Committee

Alison Campbell's career has largely been at the academic-industry interface, both in industry and the public sector. As an independent consultant, Alison specialises in academic/business collaboration and commercialisation. Her areas of expertise include strategic planning; project management; business development; and technology transfer. She also delivers training and development, nationally and internationally.

Most recently, as Managing Director for King's College London Business Ltd she ran research commercialisation and enterprise across the range of academic disciplines at the University. Her remit has included business development and collaboration, IP management, consultancy, out-licensing, start-up company creation, clinical trials, executive education, research management and capturing the impact of research and innovation. Previously Alison worked for the UK Medical Research Council, with responsibility for commercialisation of the intra-mural research programme. She has been Division Director within the MRC, Technology Transfer Group and was latterly CEO at MRC Technology. A graduate of University College London, she completed her PhD in chemical biology at Imperial College London and then moved into industry as a research scientist at Celltech Ltd.

Alison has served as a non-executive director of a number of high technology companies and is currently a non-executive director of PraxisUnico, the UK organisation that supports knowledge transfer and commercialisation, and Chair of its training committee. She led the merger of Praxis and Unico in 2009. Alison has acted as an adviser to a number of government agencies including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Research Councils UK, the BBSRC, JISC, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland.

Alison was awarded an OBE for services to Knowledge Transfer in 2010.

David graduated with First Class honours and a PhD from Queens University, Belfast in the early 90s. After a period of Medical Research Council funded post-doctoral research, he then moved into technology transfer at the University of Southampton, subsequently consolidating these skills at the University of Ulster, prior to taking up the current position of Innovation Advisor within the N. Ireland Health Service in January 2005. Over the past five years he has been responsible for amongst other things; the creation and delivery of the "Supporting Innovation in the HPSS <N. Ireland health service>" framework project, the roll-out and adoption of the Innovation Policy for HSC, securing both the funding for and developing the infrastructure of HSC Innovations as a regional service; and managing and commercialising a pipeline of varied technologies in the healthcare arena. Within the technology transfer arena David is involved in all aspects of the innovation process, as well as strategic management of technology portfolios. His interests include intellectual asset management, research translation, assessing value (savings) of the introduction of healthcare technologies, technology management and innovation strategy. He represents HSC in this important area of Innovation within the healthcare environment both nationally and internationally.  

Sean Fielding is Director of Research & Knowledge Transfer at the University of Exeter.  He is responsible for the strategic direction of the institution’s research portfolio, its performance and impact.

He manages the University’s support for research collaborations, contract research, EU research, IPR and commercialization, knowledge transfer partnerships, consultancy, research studentships, economic development activity and the University’s commercial companies. He also leads on strategically important regional initiatives, such as the University’s Innovation Centres and Science Park.

The Research & Knowledge Transfer team manages approximately 450 projects each year and its services to businesses and professionals bring in over £25 million per annum.

He has been at the University for 13 years and previously ran marketing communications for the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (the forerunner to Universities UK). He has also led companies delivering a range of joint venture national and international projects linked to HE. 

Liz’s primary responsibilities include developing and facilitating links between the University and the business world, leading and developing the business development team at Aberystwyth, and seeking funding for projects. Current projects include:

• Welsh Institute of Sustainable Environments (WISE Network) – an ongoing collaboration between 3 Welsh Universities
• Climate Change Consortium for Wales
• Development of a collaborative Skills Centre with Bangor University
• EU funding bids

Prior to joining Aberystwyth Liz worked for the University of Leicester in a contracts and technology transfer role, and before that for the Alstom Power Technology Centre. Liz is a Chartered Engineer who sits on the IMechE Professional Review Committee, and moved into university business development and technology transfer after 5 years as a mechanical engineer carrying out R&D in the gas turbine industry.

Carina Healy is a Partner in Dundas & Wilson's IP/IT Group based in Glasgow. She is qualified in both Scots and English law.

Carina specialises in licensing, development and commercialisation of IP, spin-out company formation and commercial contracts. She has a long standing relationship with the University of Glasgow having advised it for nearly 13 years during which she has spent time on secondment to its Research & Enterprise Office. During that time Carina advised the University of Glasgow on its innovative 25 year partnership agreement with IP2IPO and has advised the University of Glasgow on the formation of more than 25 spin-out companies.

Carina also regularly advised other universities including Dundee University and UCL Business plc, the technology transfer arm of University College London, and University spin-out and start-up companies. She is a regular on training courses on academic technology transfer and spin-out company formation.

Carina has particular expertise in life sciences, having specialised in this area for the past 9 years. She has advised clients on strategically important agreements with large pharmaceutical, diagnostics and medical device companies and on regulatory issues relating to medicines, medical devices, clinical trials, human tissue and MHRA inspections. She also advises on product disposals and acquisitions, in and out-licensing, large scale clinical trials, co-developed and collaboration agreements, and manufacturing, supply, marketing and promotional agreements.

As Collaboration Manager, Adam’s role is to support the university strategy in developing collaboration and enterprise opportunities to maximise the impact of university research. His principal focus is the Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences which encompasses Biology, Chemistry and Ocean & Earth Sciences. He joined the University in 2010 and has had broad exposure to contract management, business development and technology transfer activities.

Previously Adam worked for a financial services headhunting firm in the City of London, managing international hiring projects for global financial institutions across capital markets, corporate banking, corporate finance, insurance and private equity. He started his career as an accountant with Deloitte and Touche in London working with technology, media and telecommunications clients. Adam has a Masters degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from the University of Oxford.

Maureen specialises in intellectual property and technology law, with a particular focus on technology transfer.

Before joining Keystone Law she was an in-house solicitor at Cancer Research Technology Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cancer Research UK. There she worked on a wide variety of matters including patent licensing and assignment, collaborative research agreements, research grants, clinical trials and consultancy agreements. Maureen began her career with City law firm Herbert Smith. She spent nine years there and specialised in intellectual property and information technology deals and disputes. Her experience encompasses work in relation to patents, trade marks, copyright, confidential information, information technology and data protection. Maureen is experienced in providing legal training to lawyers and non-lawyers.

She is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast where she gained a Masters in Law and Computers and she holds a Diploma in Intellectual Property Law from Bristol University.

Maureen has published on a range of intellectual property and technology topics and is a contributor to “Intellectual Property Issues in Commercial Transactions” (Sweet and Maxwell 2007).

Simon graduated with a Masters and an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) from UMIST, Chemical Engineering Department in the late 90s and early 2000s.  As part of his Doctorate he gained a diploma in Management from the University of Manchester whilst also working for a speciality chemicals company, Sachetpack Ltd, an SME delivering fermentation technologies to the food and drinks sector. In 2002 Simon moved into Technology Transfer working for the University of Liverpool’s MerseyBio Life Sciences Incubator identifying commercial opportunities, supporting commercial exploitation with a focus on spin-outs from the University and start-ups from within the Merseyside region.  He then became the Business Manager for the Centre for Materials Discovery (CMD), a £10m project delivering High Throughput chemistry solutions to numerous industrial clients within a wide range of sectors. Simon is currently Head of ‘Business Gateway’ and ‘Liverpool IP’, where he is responsible for the University’s business development and Intellectual Property strategies and operational support for the associated activities. He is also involved in strategically important regional initiatives, working closely with the Local Enterprise Partnership and representing the University in non-exec director roles within regional investment organisations and science parks.

Dr David Secher is Principal of Cambridge KT Ltd and works as an independent consultant in the area of research commercialisation - in the UK and internationally. He is based in the University of Cambridge. His career has included Director of Research Services, University of Cambridge; Chief Executive of the N8 Research Partnership (a collaboration of the eight most research-intensive universities in the North of England); Director of Drug Development, Cancer Research Campaign (now Cancer Research UK); and Director of Monoclonal Therapeutics, Celltech Ltd. David co-founded Praxis (now PraxisUnico), the leading UK technology transfer training company and is a director of PraxisUnico with responsibility for the PraxisUnico international programme. David has been a non-executive director of a number of high technology and investment companies. He acts as an adviser to universities, governments and individuals on commercialisation of intellectual property. David received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion in 2007.

Prior to his current role, Jeff was at UCL which he joined in 1990 as the first member of UCL Ventures, itself one of the first university technology transfer units in the UK to proactively encourage and nurture spin-out companies. Since then he has been actively involved in over 30 such spin-outs, many of them venture-capital backed. He co-founded, the Centre for Scientific Enterprise (CSEL) and London Technology Network (LTN) - both joint ventures with the London Business School. He also created the University's Biomedical Seed Fund and UCL Consultants Ltd and was one of the core team that conceived the university-industry 'Lambert Agreements'.  He was Director of UCL Business until 2006 when he started another new unit focusing on developing research alliances with major R&D intensive corporates.  Prior to joining UCL he was Marketing Manager with Hoechst Celanese Corporation in the US, and before that spent three years at GEC Hirst Research Centre, leading research in optical switches for telecommunications applications. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCL and an MBA from London Business School. 

Jeff is ex-Chairman of Unico (now PraxisUnico), and immediate Past President of ASTP, the European Technology Transfer Association.

Sue joined the university sector in 2002 initially as Director, Lifescience Enterprise at the University of Southampton and now as Head of Technology Transfer at the University of Bristol, following a career with AstraZeneca,.

Whilst with AstraZeneca, Sue undertook a range of commercial roles in marketing (UK and international), corporate strategy (new and existing businesses), business development and general management. As Managing Director of a French subsidiary she turned it from loss making to profit in 2 years through a rigorous prioritisation and rationalisation process. She was responsible for the sale of a subsidiary in Chile to one of its customers, negotiating a good price while protecting staff and maintaining an appropriate supply arrangement. Before leaving AstraZeneca Sue managed the licensing activity of the agricultural genetics and agrochemicals business, structuring and negotiating large genomics and genetics deals, leading due diligence teams for potential acquisitions in biotechnology, negotiating and structuring joint ventures, and setting up and monitoring research collaborations with universities and corporate entities and negotiating complex deals across cultural boundaries.

Iain Thomas is Head of Life Sciences at Cambridge Enterprise, University of Cambridge. He joined CE in 2003, and is responsible for managing the assessment, protection and exploitation of intellectual property in the life sciences and chemistry across the University of Cambridge and the Addenbrooke's Hospital site. Whilst at CE, Iain has completed over 70 licences, options or other commercial agreements. Iain has also performed the same role at a commercial technology transfer company. Prior to working in technology transfer Iain gained a PhD from the University of Sydney and 4 years postdoctoral experience in Oxford and Cambridge before undertaking an MBA.