THE CONTRIBUTION OF UNIVERSITIES

TO INCLUSIVE REGIONAL GROWTH

Tuesday 18 May

Simon is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (DPVC) leading on Regional Engagement at the University of Birmingham, and Director of the West Midlands Regional Economic Development Institute (WMREDI) and City-REDI at Birmingham Business School, where he was Dean 2012-2016. He has held various roles, including: Chair of the Chartered Association of Business Schools, member of the ESRC Council and the GBS Chamber of Commerce Council.

Before taking up his current role, Alistair was Deputy Chief Executive, and prior to that Director of External Relations at Universities UK. Before joining UUK in 2013 he was a Director at the University of Birmingham and has previously held communications, campaigning and political relations roles for national organisations in both the public and private sectors. Alistair is currently a member of the Government’s high-level stakeholder working group on EU Exit, Universities and Research; a member of the Financial Services Skills Taskforce and sits on the steering group of the Industrial Strategy Council prosperity mapping project. He has previously held voluntary roles as Deputy Chair of the board of Wonkhe, a higher education policy media company; as a Commissioner of the UPP Civic Universities Commission; and as a member of the judging panel for both the Times Higher and Guardian University Awards. He was educated at the Universities of Kent, Leicester and the Institute of Education, University of London. Alistair is a fellow of the RSA.

Anne is the Chief Executive of the Chartered Association of Buisness Schools. She joined the Association from her position as the Chief Executive of the Institute of Financial Services where she has led on strategic development, implementation and the establishment of the Institute’s relationships with government and business. Anne has extensive experience of business, educational and non-profit sectors. She worked as a Secondary school Maths teacher for eight years before joining Barclays Private Bank as a Portfolio Manager, moving on to become a Fixed Income Strategist at Barclays Wealth. After seven years at Barclays Anne joined the Institute of Financial Services, which then expanded to become ifs University College. In various roles she was responsible for setting up the Financial Capability department, managing all aspects of the regulated advice business, managing the acquisition and rebuilding ifs ProShare, commissioning and managing research projects, as well as having responsibility for the operational activities of the wider organisation. Anne joined the Chartered ABS in November 2014.

After studying politics at Oxford University at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, Alice began her career in national policy. She was an adviser at The Leverhulme Trust and Universities UK, working on research policy and funding. She also worked as a researcher with the House of Commons Select Committee covering education and research, before joining the Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC). At ABRC her responsibilities included liaison between the research councils and the then universities funding body and research into science and innovation policy. At HEFCE, Alice had a wide-ranging set of policy roles, heading, at different times, policy, funding and quality assessment for research, learning and teaching and KE. On secondment from HEFCE, she experienced research strategy in a university and led a local/regional university collaboration. Over many years, Alice has advised countries across Europe and Asia on following the UK model of a third stream of funding for knowledge exchange. Recently, she has specialised in commercialisation policy.

Chris was Minister of State jointly at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 10 September 2019 to 13 February 2020.

He was previously Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care between 25 July 2019 and 10 September 2019. He was Minister of State jointly at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy between 5 December 2018 and 25 July 2019. He was Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office from 17 July 2016 to 8 January 2018.

He was elected Conservative MP for Kingswood in May 2010