Bruce Tether is Professor of Design and Innovation at Imperial College London, the leader of the design-innovation research team at Imperial College Business School, the Research Director of Design London - a joint venture between Imperial College and the Royal College of Art (RCA), and a Fellow of the UK's Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM). He is also a member of the executive management board of the UK Innovation Research Centre (UK~IRC), a joint venture between Cambridge University and Imperial College London. He has also served as a high-level expert to, amongst others, the European Commission (DG Enterprise), the UK Government's Department of Business Innovation and Skills, and The Royal Society.
Bruce Tether joined Imperial College and Design London in October 2007, after a decade in Manchester where he was latterly Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy at the University of Manchester, with a dual appointment at the Manchester Business School (MBS) and the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC).
Prior to Manchester he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises at Warwick University’s Business School, and before that a doctoral student at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. He began his research career in 1990 as a Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is also where he won the dissertation prize and a 'first' for his bachelors degree – in economic and social geography.
Bruce's research interests are both conceptual and empirical, and concern the management and economics of design and innovation. He has published a book – on Design Inspired Innovation - over 20 refereed journal articles (mainly in leading journal such as Research Policy and Industrial and Corporate Change), 10 book chapters, as well as a number of substantial reports for the European Commission, UK Government and other bodies (see his publications page for details). His current research concerns three inter-related themes: how design contributes to innovation, especially through multidisciplinary collaborations involving design, engineering and business processes; design and innovation in, and of, services; and the evolution of architecture, design and engineering consultancies (see his research page for details).
At Imperial, Bruce teaches on the MBA programmes and on the Masters in Management programme. With colleagues, he pioneered the teaching of design to MBA students, including an elective on Designing and Innovating Services, and developed the Design and Innovation pathway of the Masters in Management. Bruce has also provided executive education to British Telecom.
[Last updated 30-June-2009]
