Programme Committee
Douglas Robertson
Douglas Robertson is Director of Business Development and Regional Affairs at The University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Douglas graduated with First Class Honours from the University in Aberdeen, followed by PhD from the University of Wales in the early 80’s. A research administration post at the University of Leeds, then led to management positions at Strathclyde, Nottingham and now Newcastle. He has a passion for seeing the fruits of research into application. His brief at Newcastle covers external research funding (£180m book value), research strategy and policy, patents, licensing, spin-out companies, support for international partnerships and economic impact of the University in the region. A quasi-public sector career has been interspersed at various times with Directorships of many young technology businesses including 9 years as a Director for a midlands based civil engineering consultancy. He is the higher education representative on the NE Transition Management Board looking at the implementation of new national systems of business support. Board memberships include NES General Partner Ltd (overseeing management of an investment fund), Codeworks Ltd (an ICT industrial network), Praxis Courses Ltd (Technology Transfer Training), Unico (the UK research commercialisation association), NUIB pte Ltd (Singapore), Clarizon Ltd and the Advisory Boards of a European Programme seeking to professionalise technology transfer training and, until early 2009, the Institute of Knowledge Transfer.
