The Regional Development Group (RDG) acts as the interface of collaboration and partnership between YU member institutions and between universities and other partners in Yorkshire working together on place-based development.
Chair of the RDG
Dr Liam Sutton
Associate Director, Research & Innovation, University of Bradford
Liam leads Research and Innovation Services at the University of Bradford, holding responsibility for ‘end-to-end’ support services for research and innovation projects, and for nurturing a research environment of excellence and inclusion at England’s top-ranked University for social mobility. Liam is co-author of Bradford’s strategies for both Research and Innovation and Business and Community Engagement.
Liam studied Chemistry at Oxford and Nottingham, before postdoctoral research at Sheffield, Erlangen-Nuremburg (as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow) and Leeds working on organic materials and self-assembly chemistry. He joined chemical multinational Clariant as an R&D Chemist in 2004, then returned to Sheffield in 2006 to take up a business development role at the Polymer Centre. Polymer Centre Manager and MD of spin-out FaraPack Polymers Ltd from 2008, he went on to develop the Science Faculty’s Knowledge Exchange Strategy and the Sheffield Science Gateway. He joined the University of Bradford as Head of Knowledge Transfer in 2013 and was promoted to Associate Director in 2018.
Liam’s ambition for the Regional Development Group is that we make the diversity of our sector count in the economic, social and cultural development of our region.
Members of the RDG
Andrew Jones
Head of Careers, Employability and Enterprise at Leeds Arts University
Simon Baldwin
Associate Director of Knowledge Exchange at Leeds Beckett University
Patsy Gilbert
Vice Principal and Director of Performance at Leeds Conservatoire
Claire Newhouse
Dean of External Engagement and Impact at Leeds Trinity University
Professor Wayne M Cranton
Dean of Research at Sheffield Hallam University
Dr Nick Lancaster
Director of Research, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange
Emma Calverley
Director of Knowledge Exchange at the University of Hull
Marc Eatough
Head of Regional Development and Engagement at the University of Leeds
Dr Andrew Jackson
Director of Research and Enterprise at the University of York
Yasmin Knight
Assistant Director Partnerships and Regional Engagement & Head of Regional Engagement at the University of Sheffield
Marc Fleetham
Director of Business Development and Knowledge Exchange at York St John University
