Lisa is a Business Development and Strategy Manager at Royce the UK's national Institute for advanced materials research and Innovation.
Following a previous career in scientific research in Industry (Novartis Neuroscience and Organon Womens Health) Lisa moved into knowledge exchange pursuing a degree in Technology Management after securing funding from Enterprise Ireland. She has spent the past 17 years working at the interface between University and Industry. This has included roles as Senior Business Development Manager at Queen Mary University of London, where she focused on collaborative and contract research with industry and has experience of leading a range of collaborative programmes including the design, implementation and management of a £3 million EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account, she has also been involved in new venture formations and coordinating scientific training networks across Europe.
From 2012 to 2019 she came to the University of Manchester to become a Strategic Research and Funding Manager in the Faculty of Biology and Medicine. A senior management position working to influence direction of research strategy. There she focused and directed multi million funding awards, leading large strategic public private partnerships, securing three consecutive MRC Stratified Medicine awards totalling £15M plus £8M from thirty-six industry partners including; Eli Lilly, AbbVie Inc, GSK, Qiagen, J&J, AstraZeneca, BGI, Genentech, Sanofi, Pfizer, Aeirtec, UCB, Myriad.
In the past four years she has been at Royce, the UK front door to advanced Materials Research. There she is working to build strategic alliances with industry and identify UK materials research challenges that can be advanced in collaboration with these partners. In her first year, she has been instrumental in securing and leading a £10M ERDF award for the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub aiming to help improve the understanding, use, and consumption of plastics by SMES across the Greater Manchester region. She is currently working on a National Innovation Strategy for Materials in Bioelectronic Health care.