Advisory Committee Chair

Cultivate Innovation collaborated with UKRI’s Energy and Decarbonisation Programme, where Mike chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee. This partnership focused on enhancing the impact and efficiency of energy research, aligning it with the goal of achieving net zero. Mike’s role as committee chair in this collaboration was pivotal in driving forward-thinking strategies and ensuring the effective application of research outputs, thereby contributing significantly to UKRI’s vision and objectives.

Activities undertaken

• Contributed facilitation skills to enhance the impact of UKRI’s energy research towards achieving net zero goals
• Played a key role in shaping SAC discussions, ensuring a productive exchange of ideas among diverse groups of experts
• Participated in the ‘Delivering Net Zero’ project, aiding in the development of impactful research strategies with a shorter time frame
• Provided expertise in cross-disciplinary research facilitation and peer review panels, aiding in making well-informed research funding decisions

“We have called on Mike a lot for help and hopefully we haven’t abused his good nature too much! He’s been incredibly helpful, not only in helping facilitate cross-disciplinary research, which he’s done quite a lot of, but also in peer review. We have peer review panels which help prioritise which research proposals we should fund, and he’s been massively helpful to us on that. He’s a very good chair. He has useful expertise to bring to a number of different areas so he’s been hugely helpful to us in making really sensible decisions over a number of years.”