The chief executive of the Technology Strategy Board, Iain Gray, social scientist Teresa Rees, and UCL researcher and campaigner Jenny Rohn have been short-listed for the Research Fortnight Achiever of the Year Award.
The winner will be announced at the Research Fortnight annual conference on 9 November.
Gray has headed the Technology Strategy Board since its inception in 2007, having previously worked as managing director of Airbus UK. Under his direction the TSB has become one of the pillars of UK government efforts to rebalance the economy. The TSB has also been given the role of implementing the first of the planned Technology and Innovation Centres.
Rees is a professor of social sciences at Cardiff University and is an important voice in research on sexualities and gender. Her work has especially focused on women and science policies in Europe and embedding gender considerations across all policy areas. Rees is also director for Wales of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and a member of the board of the Campaign for the Social Sciences.
Rohn, a cell biologist at University College London, is the founding chairwoman of the Science is Vital campaign, which is regarded as being instrumental in persuading the government to retain a ring fence on non-capital science funding. Rohn is also an author, publishing a range of laboratory-based fiction known as “lab-lit”.
Research Fortnight editor Ehsan Masood said, “The award will be given to an individual who has left an indelible mark on the research policy world during the past 12 months, showing leadership and taking actions that will, in the judges’ view, make the UK research environment more productive, healthy and transparent.”
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