Queen Mary appoints Phil Clare as CEO of Queen Mary Innovation 

Dr Phil Clare. Credit: Ian Wallman/Innovation Oxford.

Dr Phil Clare was previously the Director of Innovation & Engagement, at the University of Oxford, where he worked closely with Oxford University Innovation, Oxford Science Enterprises and other partners to develop the innovation ecosystem in Oxford. His many achievements there include helping to agree the license for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. More than 3 billion doses of the vaccine have been supplied to 183 countries worldwide, saving many millions of lives.  

Dr Clare worked across the academic divisions at Oxford to develop new and ambitious strategies and policies for innovation and engagement, leading major initiatives to drive the growth of research and innovation across the institution.  

As the CEO of Queen Mary Innovation, Dr Clare will lead Queen Mary’s innovation and knowledge exchange activities. Queen Mary has grown from strength to strength in knowledge exchange – the sharing of knowledge, ideas and experience with the community, business, and public and third sectors. In the second Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF2), Queen Mary has been ranked among the top 20% of English universities in the categories public and community engagement, research partnerships, and IP and commercialisation, and has made strong progress in the categories of working with business, and working with the public and third sector. 

Queen Mary Innovation Ltd (QMI) is Queen Mary University of London’s wholly-owned technology transfer company and is responsible for the commercialisation and management of the university’s intellectual property and a portfolio of spinout companies. These include Keratify, a patented technology designed by skin scientists to improve current skin testing practices; Nemisindo, a technology created by Queen Mary’s Entrepreneur in Residence Professor Josh Reiss, which generates sounds using physics models, for use instead of samples; Dragonfly, an automatic saliency detection company (with revenues growing rapidly at more than £1m per annum); and hViVo, the world leader in testing infectious and respiratory disease products using human challenge study models, which developed the world's first COVID-19 challenge study model. 

Dr Clare said of his appointment: “I am looking forward to joining the experienced team at Queen Mary Innovation. Since my appointment I have received many messages congratulating me on joining such an ambitious and forward-looking university and I can’t wait to start.  We will grow the team and look for every opportunity to work with the leading researchers at Queen Mary who want to use their technologies and innovations to make a real difference to our global economy and society, taking our researchers’ innovations from Whitechapel to the world.’” 

Professor Colin Bailey, President and Principal of Queen Mary University of London said: “Dr Clare’s leadership experience, combined with his passion for how science and technology can solve our biggest challenges, will take Queen Mary Innovation to new heights. I am very much looking forward to working with him in his new role.” 

Professor Andrew Livingston, Queen Mary’s Vice-Principal for Research and Innovation, said: "We're delighted to have Dr Clare at the helm of Queen Mary Innovation, where he will be driving enterprise and accelerating the pace at which our innovations can be put to work for society. His expertise will help us to grow new businesses and start-ups from our research, creating even more jobs and opportunities in our local community." 

Dr Clare is a chemist by training. He has a BSc from King’s College London, a PhD in Organometallic Chemistry from the University of Bath, an MA in Intellectual Property Management from Bournemouth University and an MBA from Oxford. He is a council member for Research England and in 2022 chaired the Knowledge Exchange Concordat Evaluation Panel for UUK.  He was Chair of PraxisAuril, the UK professional association for Knowledge Exchange Practitioners and is now an ambassador for them.  Previously, he was a board member of ARMA, the Association of Research Managers and Administrators. He is a registered technology transfer professional (RTTP), and a Member of the Institute of Directors (MIoD).  

Before Oxford he worked at the Universities of Bath and Bournemouth in a variety of roles related to research management and commercialisation, and for the UK Research Office in Brussels.