About us

Chief Executive

Tim Bestwick joined STFC Innovations as Chief Executive at the end of April 2003. After BA and PhD degrees from Cambridge University in Engineering he worked for IBM Research Division in New York , returning to be one of the first employees at Sharp Laboratories in Oxford. His technical career has been mainly in semiconductor nanostructures and optoelectronics.

Prior to joining STFC Innovations, Tim has been in two start-up companies, at various times managing product development, intellectual property, operations and business development, as well as raising venture capital investment. He is involved in the management of the whole portfolio of STFC Innovations opportunities, in determining the commercialisation strategy and the development of the company overall.

Innovations Management Team

Nick Trigg - Innovation Manager

Nick has an Engineering Degree from Oxford University and a MBA from INSEAD. He has spent much of his career in working with small technology companies in operational and advisory roles. His most recent position was advising small companies on strategy and investment readiness helping several to raise funds for early stage and start-up companies.

Nick has also worked for a technology Venture Capital fund investing in small technologies companies at various stages of maturity, ranging from start-up through to development capital and MBO deals. In addition, Nick has worked in the oil industry as an electrical engineer and since then in a variety of roles in the mobile telematics, telecommunications components and multinational engineering/manufacturing industries.

Kate Ronayne - Innovation Manager

Kate has a degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Queen’s University Belfast. Her initial commercial experience was obtained while working in the Sales and Marketing division of a detector company in Belfast which was spun-out of the university.

Kate joined STFC in 2004 as a Laser Instrument Scientist in the Ultrafast Spectroscopy Laboratory where she continued her research into time-resolved infra-red and Raman spectroscopy to monitor processes in biology, physics and chemistry.

In June 2008, Kate left the Central Laser Facility to join the STFC Innovations innovation management team at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Ian Tracey - Innovation Manager

Ian graduated from the University of Surrey, where he won the ICL prize for his year. He started his career at BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, researching into Virtual Reality and distributed group working. He then moved to BT Internet & Multimedia Services where he globally sourced new technologies to utilise the emerging broadband network. After leaving BT, Ian setup a series of technology start-ups, for angel investors in the TMT space, before starting his own company supplying Information Solutions to blue chips.

Ian concentrates on spinouts. He is a non exec director for several of the STFC spinouts.

Jan Lawrence - Office Manager

Jan joined STFC Innovations in April 08, and provides administration support to the STFC Innovations team based at the Rutherford Appleton site and also supports the spin out companies.

New Business Team

Paul Vernon - Head of New Business Opportunities

A Biochemistry graduate of Manchester University, Paul heads up the New Business Opportunities Team. With extensive experience in a broad range of commercial roles, his blend of broad scientific knowledge and business skills is well suited to the STFC Innovations environment.

Paul's career started with commercial finance and has covered medical and laboratory sales and marketing, establishment of international distributor networks and the setting up and running of early stage high-tech companies.

Paul's particular strength is in identifying business opportunities from sometimes rather esoteric inventions and in raising capital to take them forward. He plays an active part in the technology development and is a co-inventor on several of the patents that underpin STFC Innovations 's intellectual property portfolio.

Within STFC Innovations , Paul has been responsible for spinning out a number of companies and has acted as Chief Executive for both L3 Technology and Microvisk.

Elizabeth Bain - IP and Licensing Manager

After graduating as an Engineer from Salford University Elizabeth held several positions in R&D, product design and development for high tech companies in the oil and gas, and automotive sector.

Elizabeth’s interest and experience in Intellectual Property Management emanated from an international technology transfer role for the European Enterprise Network, providing technical support and guidance in Product Development and R&D to SME’s in the North West of England.

Elizabeth joined STFC Innovations in 2008. Based at Daresbury laboratories Elizabeth is responsible for managing the IP portfolio, policy and strategy and licensing activities across all of the STFC sites.

Andy Bennett - Campus Account & New Business Opportunity Manager

Andy joined STFC Innovations in January 2007 working part time as the Campus Account Manager. This involves interacting with tenants from across the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and connecting them with the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Prior to STFC Innovations he worked as a beamline scientist on the X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Beamlines at the SRS, Daresbury Laboratory. He therefore has extensive knowledge of synchrotron techniques and technology existing within STFC. As well as the Campus role he is now part of the New Business Opportunities team looking for novel ways of generating income for the research council.

Andy has an MSc and PhD in Geochemistry from the University of Leeds where he used Synchrotron X-ray and Electron Microscopy techniques to study gold containing geological materials.

Anne Green - Business Support Manager

Anne originally qualified as a teacher. She subsequently worked for UKAEA for many years in several managerial positions, latterly in property management. Anne joined STFC in 1998 in the commercial office that transferred into STFC Innovations in 2002.

Anne has enormous relevant experience and is currently active in Patent Administration, Licensing and Start-ups, Inventor Award Schemes, Proof of Concept Fund Scheme & Technical Sales.

Anne is responsible for organising and controlling procedures and office management systems & is based at the Daresbury site.

Laura Swan - Technical Sales Officer

Laura joined STFC Innovations full time in January 2007, transferring from the User Liaison Office at Daresbury Laboratory.

Laura has worked at Daresbury for over 14 years mainly in office roles and has gained a wealth of experience.

Laura is responsible for the technical sales administration at the Daresbury site.

Business Development Team

John Bancroft - Head of Business Development

John graduated as a chemist from UMIST and is a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. After six years working in technical sales and marketing roles covering precious metals and high purity materials based in the UK and the USA for Johnson Matthey, John spent the next decade working in instrumentation and analysis sales and marketing with VG Instruments and Bruel and Kjaer.

For the last twelve years John has worked in business development roles, including IP management and new business start-ups, for EA Technology, Capenhurst (formerly the Electricity Research and Development Centre) and for DERA/QinetiQ, Malvern.

John has experience in exporting to Europe, North America, India and the Pacific Rim and in a great variety of industries and technologies.

Chris Bee - Business Development Manager

Chris is an Astrophysics graduate from Bristol University who came to STFC Innovations from the Health & Safety Laboratory (an agency of HSE) having successfully developed new business from industry and other government departments for Scientists in the Human Factors, Fire Safety and Explosions Groups. Prior to joining HSE, Chris was an Applied Physicist with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) working on respiratory and aircrew protection programs. In both these roles, Chris has developed significant expertise in the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives (CBRNE) area and continues to be involved in injecting technology into the defence and security sectors.

Chris is responsible for liaising with both space and non-space customers who require the world class expertise and technology provided by the Space Science and Technology Department at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Chris is part of the commercial team which interfaces with the European Space Agency (ESA) and is also the representative at the ESA Industrial Participation Committee in the UK. The department has a proud heritage with 187 instruments in space and offers expertise in; instrumentation and high precision spectroscopy, high reliability engineering and design, remote sensing, atmospheric and radio science, ground segment services, data processing and archive, astronomy and space science, space test and evaluation, thermal design, optics, electronics design and imaging systems.

Gavin Tracey - Business Development Manager

Gavin completed a BEng (Hons) Electronics and Communications Engineering degree, incorporating a 12 month work placement as a competitor analyst at Nortel Networks. Upon his completion, Gavin accepted a position with Web Kiosks, a start up company, where he had an influential role in the design and development of prototype kiosks.

Taking a year out, Gavin undertook a Masters degree in Vacuum Science which led to his position as a Technical Sales person (South UK) for Vacuum Generators. Gavin maintained the company’s largest single account whilst increasing revenue and profitability within his territory.

Joining STFC Innovations in 2007, Gavin is working towards increasing knowledge exchange between the Science Technology Facility Council and industry.