Tim is the inaugural Dr John C Taylor Professor of Innovation at the University of Cambridge, Head of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) and Head of the IfM’s Centre for Technology Management (CTM). His research, teaching and engagement activities are focused on the links between manufacturing, innovation, and skills. Tim is a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge, and a member of the board of directors for IfM Education and Consultancy Services Ltd and St John’s Innovation Centre Ltd. He is a member of the IET's Innovation and Emerging Technologies Policy Panel, and the UK Made Smarter Commission’s Expert Panel.

Originally a chemical engineer, John Bessant has been active in the field of research and consultancy in technology and innovation management for over 40 years.  He is Emeritus Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Exeter and has visiting appointments at the universities of Stavanger, Norway and Erlangen-Nuremburg, Germany.  In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank and the OECD. He is the author of 30 books and many articles on the topic and has lectured and consulted widely around the world.  Clients have included Toyota, Novo-Nordisk, Hella, Lego, Morgan Stanley, Coloplast, Corus, Danfoss, GSK, Grundfos,  Hewlett-Packard and Kumba Resources.

Riccardo Fini is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at the University of Bologna and a Fellow at Imperial College London. He also serves as Director of the Entrepreneurship Hub at Bologna Business School. He is a two-time recipient of the EU Marie Curie fellowship (IEF2010; CIG2012). His research interests include entrepreneurship, science commercialization and impact. His work is published in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, and Research Policy. He's serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of Technology Transfer. His research was featured in Il Sole24Ore, Nature, Times Higher Education and The New York Times.

Keynote Presentation: University Entrepreneurship and Impact

Erkko Autio FBA is Chair in Technology Venturing at Imperial College Business School (previously at Aalto University; HEC Lausanne; CERN). He co-founded the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the Global Entrepreneurship Index. His research focuses on digitalisation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, innovation ecosystems and business model innovation. He has been cited in some 400-500 news media globally. He has nearly 34 000 Google Scholar citations. His students have created several billion Euro in new market capitalization through new ventures. He has been recognised as one of the top 50 most impactful management scholars globally (graduation 1995 or later; Aguinis et al, 2012).

Keynote Presentation: Disrupting Disruption

Steve currently serves as the Deputy Director of NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), which is working to infuse challenge and crowdsourcing innovation approaches at NASA and across the federal government. CoECI focuses on the study and use of curated, crowdsourcing communities that utilize prize and challenge-based methods to deliver innovative solutions for NASA and the US government. Steve has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Rice University and has worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for 30 years. 

Keynote Presentation: Adopting R&D to cope with Relentless Change: Reflections on 10 Years of NASA's Innovation Efforts

Prof. Dr. Ellen Enkel is Editor-in-Chief of the R&D Management Journal, and Professor of Business Administration and Mobility at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen, one of the largest engineering faculties in Europe. She specialises in innovation in products, processes, services and business models in the mobility industries. Before her position at Duisburg-Essen, she was head of the Dr. Manfred Bischoff Institute of Innovation Management of Airbus at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany. From 1999 to 2008 she did research and teaching in various positions in information systems and technology management at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland).

Keynote Presentation: Innovation in an Era of Disruption