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Dr Cathy Garner

Dr Cathy Garner has a life-long dedication to innovation for economic and social improvement and over 20 years of experience in practice. She is founder and current principal of an international consulting network specialising in innovation in cities and university-business partnerships for knowledge exchange. As an Associate of the Council for Industry and Higher Education her focus is on innovation in high-growth sectors such as CDIT.

In the UK she is a Non-Executive Director of Places for People, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Institute of Knowledge Transfer. Internationally she is a member of the Standing Committee for the National Centres of Excellence in Canada; a member of the New Club of Paris and an advisor to the World Capital Institute in Mexico on knowledge-city development.

Between 2005 and 2011 as Chief Executive of Manchester: Knowledge Capital she built a globally recognised partnership for innovation by bridging the boundaries across business, universities and government. Her partnership building skills and style of leadership delivered success by inspiring and supporting innovation across projects and sectors. Manchester achieved global recognition for this effort by being named most admired Knowledge City in 2009.

She held a public appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property in the UK between 2008 and 2010 and was a member of the Cabinet Office Innovators’ Council in 2009.

In 2002 Cathy established an international charity to address the health needs of the global poor through creative intellectual property solutions, working with the Rockefeller Foundation of New York, international NGO’s, multinational corporations and universities worldwide.  Previously Cathy established and ran the Research and Enterprise Office at the University of Glasgow in Scotland where she led the establishment of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise and was a founder director of the Scottish North American Business Council. She was a member of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) in the USA and served as their inaugural Vice President for International Relations.

With a background in policy development and research she has worked in economic development, innovation, knowledge transfer and business entrepreneurship. Her initial academic research career was in school educational performance, urban regeneration and community development.