Opportunities and Challenges in Science, Technology and Innovation Foundation Future Leaders Conference 2025

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 1851 community have been invited to participate in this year’s FST annual future leaders conference – the details of which are below.  The Royal Commission has worked with the Foundation for Science and Technology in past, sponsoring a number of their events and will be supporting the event this year – the Foundation provides a hugely valuable link between policy makers and practitioners and I would recommend attending, either in person or virtually if you are interested in this year’s discussion topics.

Warmest regards

John

Opportunities and Challenges in Science, Technology and Innovation

Foundation Future Leaders Conference 2025

 Wednesday 19^th November 2025

 09:30– 18:00 (in person) / 10:00 – 16:40 (online)

Speakers include:

Professor Charlotte Deane, Executive Chair, Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council [TBC]

Professor Claire Ozanne, Vice-Chancellor, Liverpool Hope University

Liam Robinson, Leader, Liverpool City Council

Professor Richard Jones FRS, Chair of Materials Physics and Innovation Policy, The University of Manchester

Helen Turner, Director, Midlands Innovation [TBC]

Gareth Cross, Deputy Director of Science, Research and Evidence, Welsh Government

Sue Ferns, Senior Deputy General Secretary, Prospect

Simon Hepworth, Director of Knowledge Exchange, Research England

 This is the annual conference organised by the Foundation Future Leaders. It is open to all, and specifically targeted at early- to mid-career professionals from the civil and public sector, from industry and from the research community, with roles in science, technology and innovation.

 At the conference, we will have a keynote address, and two plenary sessions focussed on a) developments in regional science and innovation, and b) barriers to success in UK science, technology and innovation. There will also be three breakout discussion sessions, focussed on health, energy and AI.

 The conference is free to attend and all are welcome, either in person in Liverpool, or online.

 We are hugely grateful to Liverpool Hope University and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 for supporting this event.

 Participating in person

The event is being held in the i3 Building, Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park, Liverpool L16 9JD. A summary of the agenda is shown below.

A copy of the full agenda is available on the event page of the website.

The event and reception are free, and we very much hope that you can join us.

To register to attend in person, please click here.

If you have any trouble registering for this event, please contact us on [email protected]

Silman Fund

The Foundation has a very small fund to support people with potentially additional costs of attending Foundation meetings to be able to participate – such as childcare costs or sign language interpretation – along with PhD students. All the details and application forms can be found here.

Participating Online

You can also participate online via YouTube Live.

To register to follow the livestream, please click here.

Foundation Future Leaders scheme

 This event is being organised by the 2025 Foundation Future Leaders. This is an annual scheme which brings together early- to mid-career professionals in science and technology from the civil and public sectors; from industry; and from the wider research community.

Applications for the 2026 scheme are now open and the deadline is 25^th November 2025.

If you would like to discuss the Foundation Future Leaders scheme, please contact Gavin Costigan ([email protected])