Birmingham Policy Commission: Cold Commissioners

Chair

Lord Robin TeversonLord Robin Teverson - (Lib Dem) Spokesperson for Energy and Climate Change, House of Lords

Lord Teverson was Member of the European Parliament for Cornwall and West Plymouth between 1994 and 1999, becoming one of the first two Liberal Democrats elected to the European Parliament.

He was Chief Whip of the European Liberal Democrat Group from 1997 to 1999. In Europe he spoke on marine, transport and regional policy issues, and was previously spokesperson in the Lords for Environment, Food and Rural affairs.

He joined the Liberal Democrat group in the House of Lords in 2006, speaking on climate change and energy issues. He is currently the Co-Chair (spokesperson) of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee on Energy and Climate Change.

On June 1, 2006 he was created a life peer as Baron Teverson of Tregony in the County of Cornwall.

Commissioners

Professor Toby PetersProfessor Toby Peters – Senior Group Managing Director, Dearman

An award-winning strategist and advocate, along with leading Dearman and its vision, Toby has catalysed the development of the Cold Economy/ the need to do cold smarter in the UK and internationally. 

Toby co-founded both Highview Power Storage (2004) and Dearman Engine Company (2011) and with them the concept of liquid air as an energy storage solution for both grid and transport delivering both cold and power. In 2013, he moved across full-time to Dearman. He has established liquid air within the mainstream energy debate and helped secure some £20 million of UK grant funding for liquid air development as well as more than £12 million of inward investment into the UK for technology development.

Toby is an Honorary Professor at the Birmingham Energy Institute.

 

Professor Martin FreerProfessor Martin Freer - Director, Birmingham Energy Institute (BEI)

Professor Freer is Director of the Birmingham Energy Institute, Director of the Birmingham Centre for Nuclear Education and Research, and head of the Nuclear Physics Group at Birmingham.

His main research area is the study of the structure of light nuclei using nuclear reactions. This research is performed at international facilities worldwide and in 2010 he won the Rutherford Medal and Prize which is awarded once every two years by the Institute of Physics for distinguished research in nuclear physics or nuclear technology.

In addition, he is actively engaged in promoting research and educational programmes to support the UK's investment in nuclear power generation. His expertise are in the areas nuclear physics; nuclear education; nuclear power research; pure nuclear science; waste management; decommissioning and energy.

 

Dr Jonathan Radcliffe - Senior Research Fellow, University of BirminghamJonathan Radcliffe

Dr Jonathan Radcliffe is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, and works across the Engineering and Physical Science College, and the Business School. His research interests lie in technology, policy and market options for energy system flexibility, in particular the role of energy storage.

Jonathan has extensive knowledge of policy-making, having worked in Government and Parliament for 13 years. He has worked directly with policy makers, academics and business leaders at the highest level.

He has written reports on future energy innovation priorities, the role of energy storage, and flexibility options for the UK’s energy system. He has experience of working within Europe and China, and is leading a comparative analysis of UK and Korea energy systems funded by the FCO.

Jonathan regularly presents at national and international conferences, and contributes articles to journals and magazines.

 

Professor Lenny KohProfessor Lenny Koh – Director, Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainability Logistics

Professor Lenny Koh is Director of the Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES) and Director of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) Research Centre, University of Sheffield.

She is an Associate Dean, Chair Professor in Operations Management, Founder and Director of the Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) Research Centre at the Management School & the Faculty’s Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES), at The University of Sheffield, UK. She is also the co-founder of Supply Chain Management and Information Systems (SCMIS) Consortium, a global network of leading academic and practitioners driving research and knowledge exchange on supply chain and information systems.

A World leading mind recognised amongst FRSs and Nobel Laureates within the University, Professor Koh is a Senior Chair Professor, an internationally renowned and established authority in supply chain especially on low carbon and sustainability, with a high H-index (World number 2) and high research income generation in her discipline internationally. She is active in leading a 2022 Futures initiative advancing resource efficiency and supply chain disciplines, navigating a new translational model for connecting invention/basic science at lower TRL to higher TRL.

Professor Koh’s leadership and management role involves leading alumni, external relations and championing partnerships with industry, government and other top institutions. She is a member of the strategy executive leadership board. 

 

Professor Tim BentonProfessor Tim Benton - UK Champion for Global Food Security, University of Leeds

Professor Tim Benton is the “Champion” for the UK’s Global Food Security (GFS) programme, leading, facilitating and coordinating its activities, and acting as a spokesperson for the programme and the challenges of food security. 

GFS is a partnership of the UK’s main public funders of research in food security, including the research councils and government departments (including Department of Health, Defra, DFID, FSA and the devolved administrations).  The role of GFS is to ensure that strategically important research in this area is undertaken, and to add value to research via interdisciplinary collaboration, alignment and engagement of different communities of stakeholders.  

He is also a leading researcher, based at the University of Leeds, on agri-environment interactions and finding ways to make agricultural production more sustainable.

 

Dinah McLeod – Director of Strategic Development, Overseas Development Institute

Dinah McLeod is Director of Strategic Development, Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure, at the Overseas Development Institute.

Before joining ODI she lived in Germany where she was CSR director for Sandoz, a Novartis-owned pharmaceuticals company; she also researched green growth issues for Allianz. Prior to this she headed the BT Global Services sustainability practice in London, where she worked with customers to adopt more sustainable modes of business operation.

In her previous role as an independent consultant, she worked on aid effectiveness issues; before that, she was a policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. Dinah began her career as a Social Protection Specialist at the World Bank, focussing on community-based development and financing issues. Dinah holds a Master’s degree from Princeton and a BA from Columbia University.

 

Dr Sally UrenDr Sally Uren – Chief Executive, Forum for the Future

Sally is Chief Executive at Forum for the Future, and works with leading global business, including Unilever, Kingfisher, M&S, Nike and PepsiCo, to deliver their mission of creating a sustainable future, as part of multi-stakeholder collaborations designed to address system-wide challenges, particularly in food and energy.

Sally is Chair of Kingfisher plc.’s Advisory Council and acts as an independent advisor on Advisory Boards for several other global businesses. She is also Chair of the Advisory Board overseeing Forum for the Future’s growing operations in the US and an Advisory Board member for Sustainable Brands.

She speaks regularly at international and national conferences on topics as diverse as future trends in retail and food, sustainable business models and brands, and scaling up for system change. She also writes for a range of publications, with recent articles in the New Statesman, Huffington Post and Management Today. Before joining Forum in 2002, Sally set up the Sustainability Group at private consultancy Casella Stanger (now owned by Bureau Veritas).

Sally obtained her PhD from Imperial College, London in environmental science, later securing a DFID sponsored Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Borneo identifying optimal nitrogen conditions for logged forests.

 

Professor Rob ElliotProfessor Rob Elliot - Director of Education, University of Birmingham

Professor Robert Elliott is an applied economist who works at the intersection of international economics, development economics, environmental and energy economics and international business.

He has a particular interest in the Chinese economy, firm behaviour, the impact of regulations on competitiveness and exports, energy efficiency, natural disasters and the impact of globalisation on the environment. Other research areas include multinationals and foreign direct investment; urban and spatial aspects of firm behaviour and the economics of climate change.

Rob currently holds the position of Director of Education in the economics department at the University of Birmingham.

 

Professor Peter FryerProfessor Peter Fryer - Professor, Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham

Professor Peter Fryer is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham and is currently investigating approaches and technologies for use in the reduction of energy at all stages of the food chain after being awarded a substantial grant from EPSRC.
The EPSRC Centre for Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains will bring together multidisciplinary research groups of substantial complementary experience and internationally leading research track record from the Universities of Brunel, Manchester and Birmingham and a large number of key stakeholders to investigate and develop innovative approaches and technologies to effect substantial end use energy demand reductions. The Centre will engage both in cutting edge research into approaches and technologies that will have significant impacts in the future, leading towards the target of 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, but also into research that will have demonstrable impacts within the initial five year lifetime of the Centre. 

Professor Fryer is a Council Member at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and is also member of the Editorial Board, "Journal of Food Engineering", Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, Soft Matter. He is an IChemE representative for the International Conference on Engineering and Food.

 

Peter BraithwaitePeter Braithwaite - Director, Engineering Sustainability, Birmingham Centre for Resilience Research and Education

Peter  Braithwaite is Director of Engineering Sustainability at the Birmingham Centre for Resilience Research and Education, University of Birmingham and an Examining Inspector with the Planning Inspectorate for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

He has had a varied international career in the construction industry and in built environment, gaining expertise in sustainability, urban regeneration, and geotechnical engineering, mining and environmental services. During his 27 years with Arup, he reached Director level and successfully developed both environmental and then sustainability businesses.

In 2008 he joined CH2M HILL to take on the role of Head of Sustainability for the London 2012 Olympic Development Agency Delivery Partner, with special responsibility for delivering energy, waste, water, materials, biodiversity and environmental impact sustainability targets.

Peter has special interests in sustainable urban regeneration, in particular investigating the cross discipline impacts of sustainable regeneration from planning, design, infrastructure, biodiversity and social impacts as well as the built form. He has particular interest in developing frameworks, key performance indicators and monitoring and assurance tools for a variety of applications including cities, such as Masdar in the UAE and for strategic sustainability programmes for corporate business as part of organisational change to a more sustainable model.

He graduated from The University of Strathclyde, with a BSc (Hons) degree in Civil Engineering. After two years working for a site investigation contractor, he continued his studies gaining an MSc and DIC in Engineering Rock Mechanics from Imperial College, London.

He was conferred as Honorary Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham in 2006 and joined the academic staff on a part - time basis in November 2012.

 

Clive HickmanClive Hickman - Chief Executive, Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC)

Prior to joining MTC in January 2011 Clive Hickman had over 35 years engineering experience in several roles within the automotive industry, culminating in the position of Head of Engineering for Tata Motors in India.

Born in Dudley in the West Midlands, he gained a first class honours degree and PhD in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. He was a senior engineer with Rover Group before becoming Engineering and Group Operations Director at the Motor Industry Research Association working on product development and later joining Ricardo Consulting Engineers, where he held a seat on the board of Ricardo Plc and was managing director of Ricardo UK Ltd.

During his career he has worked on a wide range of vehicle programmes including the development of a unique Bentley, which, along with Dr Phaefgan of VW, he presented to HM the Queen in 2002.

In 2005, he was approached by Ratan Tata with the idea to set up an engineering function for the Tata Motors in the UK and to manage the entire engineering operation for Tata Motors in India, responsible for some 6,000 engineers. During this period of extraordinary development in the automotive sector he was responsible for the ‘peoples car’ the Nano in India and the introduction of the Vista electric vehicle in UK.

 

 

David Sanders

David Sanders, Director Innovation, The Carbon Trust

David has over 25 years' experience in strategy consultancy, corporate advisory and as a technology entrepreneur with a focus on energy, clean technology and telecoms.  As Director of Innovation at the Carbon Trust, David works with early stage and corporate customers on venturing, strategy and innovation delivery in the energy and resource efficiency space.

Prior to joining the Carbon Trust, David spent 12 years running businesses that provided both strategic consultancy to large corporates and also commercialisation support to early stage companies, as well as launching new ventures.  David has co-founded several technology businesses in food production, composite materials, internet telephony, and mobile telephony software.

He has an MBA (Finance) from Wharton and a degree in Mathematics from New College, Oxford.

 

Nick WinserNick Winser - President, European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity

Joining the Board of National Grid in 2003 responsible for UK & US transmission operations and becoming its UK and European CEO in 2011, Nick is also a Non Executive Director of Kier Group, Chairing its Safety, Health and Environment Committee. In January 2015, Nick was appointed as Chairman of the Energy Systems Catapult, one of the latest technology and innovation centres set to open in the UK this year.

Nick Chairs The Power Academy and CIGRE UK and is President of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity.

Nick serves on a number of charity boards - Way Ahead Support Services (affiliated to the Royal Mencap Society) and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He is Vice President and Trustee to the Institution of Engineering and Technology Board of Trustees, Chairing its Membership and Professional Development Board.

Nick holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering and is a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, The Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers and The Energy Institute. He holds the rank of Major in the Engineer and Logistics Staff Corps (RE) V.