Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise)

About the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise)

Professor Mary Ryan is the Vice Provost for Research and Enterprise and the Armourers and Brasiers' Chair in Materials Science at Imperial College London. Among other advisory roles she is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Research Complex at Harwell, RAF Museum Research Board and the UKRI Heating and Cooling Network. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015 and is a Fellow IoM3 and of the Institute of Corrosion. She was awarded CBE for contributions to Materials Science in the 2022 Queen's Birthday honours. 

Mary completed her undergraduate degree (Joint Honours in Maths and Physics) at the University of Manchester before carrying out an MSc and PhD in Materials Science. She then joined Brookhaven National Lab in New York as a research scientist - working on synchrotron techniques for electrochemical systems. She moved to Imperial in 1998, where, among other roles, she leads Imperial’s sustainability research strategy; the Transition to Zero Pollution, and is Director of the Imperial/Hitachi University Centre for Decarbonisation and Climate Repair. In addition, Mary leads an interdisciplinary research team focused on understanding nanoscale materials, and nanoscale interfaces in and between materials and their environments. She has a particular interest in the development of operando approaches and has pioneered nanoscale methods in synchrotron science. She has published over 200 papers and graduated over 50 PhD students in the area of electrochemical materials science.

About the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise)

The Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) is responsible for developing and providing leadership to the delivery of the College’s research and enterprise strategy, and for enhancing the quality, impact, management and delivery of research in the College.

The Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) is a member of the University Management Board.  They are responsible for developing and delivering the College’s research and enterprise strategy across all the faculties (Engineering, Natural Sciences, Medicine and the Business School). Imperial’s total annual research budget is £475 million, we engage with 500+ corporate partners and have 130 active start-ups. Our overarching aim is to achieve enduring excellence in research and enterprise for the benefit of society and we have the greatest concentration of high-impact research of any major UK university (according to REF 2014). The Vice-Provost’s role is to enhance the quality, impact, management and delivery of research and the main areas of focus include: nurturing research talent, sustaining world-class core academic disciplines, fostering multidisciplinary research, establishing effective partnerships and ensuring our research informs, influences and delivers impact. To enable this, we need to have world-class research facilities and infrastructure, a vibrant and healthy research environment and adequate research funding. In terms of translation, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise)’s focus includes developing our entrepreneurial and partnerships eco-system via our corporate partnerships, technology transfer and spinouts, and technology foresight.