Suresh Kumar has recently joined the Scottish Government as Deputy Director for Innovation and Industrial Transformation as well as supporting the office of the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Scottish Government. He currently sits on the leadership team (Senior Civil Service) of the Directorate for Economic Development, which is part of the DG Economy. Suresh’s background in Biogeochemistry (PhD) and has pursued a career in management of University Research and Innovation structures focusing on, Capital Projects, Talent, Skills, Entrepreneurship and Job creation pathways and state of the art Industry-University infrastructure. He has lived in Denmark and Germany for the past 11 years working primarily at the interface of academia and industry focusing on delivery of public private partnerships in the areas of climate change, energy security, big data and artificial intelligence, health and well-being, sustainability, novel material, integrated transport, advanced manufacturing to food security and assurance etc. He established 29 state-of-the art research centres and institutes across three national science ecosystems (Ireland, Denmark, and Germany), fundraised and formalised business plans to the tune of 1.75 billion euros and designed and delivered 8 novel people’s capability programmes and 16 digital infrastructure transformation programmes worth more than 350 million euros.

Suresh has more than 17 years of experience in policy provision (187 policy reports and position papers) to Government ministries and Agencies, through specific knowledge expertise on topics and issues of strategic importance. He actively organises workshops, seminars, various fora and interactive platforms for both bottom up/top-down aspects of policy development, and acts as the chief conduit of consultations and evaluations of governmental proposals, framework programmes and major strategic infrastructure projects.