Steve Welch

Currently Executive Director – Place, Skills & Knowledge Transfer – the directorate that looks after strategic relationships with Universities (including the KTP programme), emerging innovations, and ‘place’ – I am one of the founding directors of Innovate UK Business Connect.

I have extensive knowledge transfer experience, dating back to the earliest Faraday Partnerships and running through all of Innovate UK Business Connect’s history, up to the Electronics, Sensors, Photonics Knowledge Transfer Network, of which I was CEO.

Before moving into knowledge transfer full-time, I had an extensive academic career designing, building and using scientific spacecraft instrumentation, based at University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory. During this time, I was also involved in teaching and research in systems engineering, and I have delivered bespoke teaching, research and consultancy in computer science, electronic engineering and systems engineering to large corporations and space agencies around the world.

I have a PhD in High Energy Astrophysics, and am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a member of the UK Space Agency’s Earth Observation advisory Committee.