Head, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Innovation Studies Centre
Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London
David Gann is head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London. He holds the Chair in Technology and Innovation Management – a joint appointment between the Tanaka Business School and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. This post enables new research and teaching opportunities to be developed and exploited, linking issues in social sciences and business management with those in engineering, science, technology and medicine.
David is responsible for a large portfolio of research in collaboration with firms in design, manufacturing, engineering, construction, ICT services and healthcare industries. He is co-Director of the EPSRC Innovation Studies Centre at Imperial College and of the EPSRC/AIM collaborative programme with Cambridge, Cranfield, Loughborough and Liverpool Universities: the Innovation and Productivity Grand Challenge. His personal research includes work recently published in Think, Play, Do: Technology, Innovation and Organization co-authored with Mark Dodgson and Ammon Salter, on the intensification of innovation, focusing on ‘Innovation Technology’ (IvT), the new electronic toolkit supporting design, research, development and engineering. His work focuses on how IvT can reduce costs and uncertainty in innovation processes. It includes studying the use of simulation and modelling in innovation, and management of innovation in project-based firms.
David consults with a number of leading companies and sits on the advisory panels of Laing O’Rourke, CSC and Willmott Dixon, developing strategies and capabilities for innovation. He is an advisor to several government and industry organizations focusing on research, development and innovation.