Research and innovation contacts

Phone Professor Nick Plant: +44 (0)113 343 7109

Email Professor Nick Plant via N.Plant@leeds.ac.uk

The University’s research and innovation strategy is led by Professor Nick Plant, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation. He promotes partnerships in a number of key sectors, accelerates collaboration across academic disciplines and drives the recruitment of the very best academics.

Professor Nick Plant's profile

Phone Andy Duley: +44(0)113 343 0918

Email Andy Duley via A.J.M.Duley@leeds.ac.uk

Andy Duley is responsible for overseeing the University’s research and innovation contracts, intellectual property portfolio, and commercialising research through licences and spin-outs. He has a background in marketing and has worked in both commercial and academic organisations.

Andy has over 20 years’ experience of developing collaborations between universities and industry and has worked with a wide range of investment partners. He has established and managed spin-out companies and negotiated licenses across a broad range of technologies including therapeutics, drug delivery systems, data, engineering, automotive components, telecommunications, computer gaming and healthcare.

Phone Dr Martin Stow: +44 (0)113 343 6978

Email Dr Martin Stow via M.W.Stow@leeds.ac.uk

Dr Martin Stow leads on the delivery and implementation of Nexus. Nexus provides seamless access for businesses of all sizes to the expertise, talent, skills and facilities of the University as well as creating a collaborative community of entrepreneurs, startups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within the state-of-the-art innovation hub. 

Martin is dedicated to ensuring Nexus remains an innovation powerhouse, fostering a vibrant working environment for academics, entrepreneurs and innovative companies. A biochemist by training, he has over 25 years’ experience working in senior research and development and strategic leadership roles. They include multinational businesses (as Vice President for Research and Development with Johnson & Johnson) and in start-up organisations, most recently as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an innovative DNA personalised skincare business.

Email Professor Luke Windsor via w.l.windsor@leeds.ac.uk

Luke Windsor is Dean of the Leeds Doctoral College (since September 2020) and Professor of Music Psychology in the School of Music, which he joined in 1998. As Dean, he works with academic and professional colleagues across the University, as well as in partnership with Leeds University Union and individual postgraduate researchers. He chairs Graduate Board, which reports directly to the University Senate on academic matters related to postgraduate research, and leads on researcher development for both postgraduate and early career researchers. 

The Doctoral College coordinates across the eight Faculty Graduate Schools and the pan-University services that support postgraduate research. It also guides the development of the Leeds Doctorate, our shared vision for the future of postgraduate research at the University, which aims to facilitate a holistic and equitable approach to supporting and developing postgraduate researchers.

Phone Professor Stuart Taberner: +44 (0)113 343 2019

Email Professor Stuart Taberner via S.J.Taberner@leeds.ac.uk

Stuart Taberner leads on promoting interdisciplinary research, bringing together colleagues in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities to address complex global challenges that require expertise and understanding from varied perspectives. He is responsible, with Head of Interdisciplinary Research Samantha Aspinall, for encouraging and embedding collaboration across faculties, schools, themes and platforms.

He is keen to demonstrate and further develop the University’s interdisciplinary excellence, promoting both blue-skies and challenge-led research to address pressing societal problems such as climate change, anti-microbial resistance or mental health, as well as the new opportunities from Artificial Intelligence (AI), advances in design and technology, and rethinking social and economic models.

Stuart is both an active researcher in the fields of German Studies, Holocaust Studies and Memory Studies and an experienced research manager, most recently as Director of International and Interdisciplinary Research at UK Research and Innovation.

Email Professor Cat Davies via C.N.Davies@leeds.ac.uk

Professor Cat Davies leads the University in achieving a collegiate, diverse, and ambitious research culture. In collaboration with several groups, she develops initiatives to ensure that our research operates with integrity, openness, and equality, and in a way that works for all members of the research community.

Research culture encompasses the ways we interact: the behaviours, expectations, and values that shape how our research is conducted, and the mechanisms by which our work is recognised and rewarded. Specific activities focus on supportive development for researchers and their teams, open research and impact, equality, diversity and inclusion in research, and sustainable research and innovation.

Cat is an Associate Professor in Language Development. Her projects investigate the interplay of children’s home and educational environments. She is currently focusing on the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on language and cognitive development, and collaborates with a range of government and practitioner stakeholders to apply research findings to policy and practice. 

Email Dr Amanda Bretman via A.J.Bretman@leeds.ac.uk

Dr Amanda Bretman’s role is to promote and support high quality research across the University. Leeds’ reputation as a world-leader relies on our ground-breaking research; innovative insights that push the boundaries of knowledge, which we translate to address global challenges.  

Our vision is to recognise and support high-quality research that leads to academic and non-academic impact and innovation. To deliver this we need to support colleagues to achieve ambitious research goals within our strategic framework, and identify how we value all aspects of our research activity.  

Amanda is an Associate Professor in Behavioural Ecology. Her research uses the classic model species Drosophila fruit flies to investigate the biology of social and sexual interactions. Her current projects seek to understand how individuals cope with environmental stress at a molecular level, such as how social stress alters ageing profiles and how male fertility particularly is sensitive to rising temperatures.