I am passionate about seeing the results of research and development used for societal benefit, rather than this just sitting as publications in a library. In support of this:- I work with businesses and other organisations to help them scope R&D projects, develop working relationships with appropriate researchers, access grant funding and put supporting collaboration agreements in place.- I work with researchers to assess the commercial potential of their inventions and as appropriate, help them to protect these and develop routes to market.Having a research background with a PhD in microbial fermentation, then working in the nuclear industry for 7 years developing a bacterial process to remediate heavy metal contaminated soils, while learning how to project manage R&D projects, I came to appreciate technical skills alone are not enough. You also need to be able to understand if there is a market for what you plan to develop, manage people with respect so they enjoy work and give you their best, and be able to understand finance sufficiently to demonstrate an R&D investment will in time, repay the investment many times over.Therefore I took a risk in 1998, applied for voluntary redundancy and invested the proceeds in an MBA at Lancaster University to learn these skills. Although planning on returning to R&D project management, the bursting of the technology bubble in late 1999 put me on a different path. Instead over the last twenty one years, I have applied these skills in the above areas within the university sector and have also:- Managed and delivered ERDF projects supporting UK and European SMEs businesses in developing new products and services with: technical advice, feasibility studies, intellectual property advice, collaborative projects, grant applications or student projects.