Liz Kirby is the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Director of Innovation.
Liz leads the Innovation team who are focused on developing STFC-owned intellectual property opportunities into commercial licenses and spin-out companies. She is also responsible for incubation activities at Harwell including the ESA Business Incubation Centre UK programme and the Materials Testing Laboratory. Liz is the STFC representative in UKi2S an early stage seed investment fund.
Liz has a degree in Chemistry and a DPhil in Physical Chemistry from the University of Oxford. After working for a start-up company and
then in technology transfer at the University of Reading, Liz joined STFC in 2012 as Licensing Manager and after a variety of roles she
became Director of Innovation in 2020. Liz is a director of STFC Innovations Limited which manages STFC’s spinout and licence portfolio