Dr Qun Shao

Dr. Qun Shao is an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of Open Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Bradford. He is actively involved in managing entrepreneurship programmes for students, graduate entrepreneurs, and aspiring entrepreneurs in our local community. He is also co-founder of both the Bradford UK-China Healthtech Open Innovation programme and the RCUK (Research Council UK) China Science Bridges programme. Qun has many years of knowledge transfer experience in both academic and industrial organisations across China and UK. During his role as China Programme Manager the University of Bradford was awarded a UK first-ranked RCUK Science Bridges programme (£1.3m). Qun has built strong networks with Chinese academia, industry and government and has led programmes and co-facilitated workshops that have created over 40 funded collaborations and joint venture companies between UK SMEs and academics, and counterparts in China. Qun is also a co-founder and Chief Operations Officer of Crystec Ltd, a spin-out of the University of Bradford, focused on pharmaceutical particle design and crystal engineering. He has overall responsibility for coordinating international research, supply chain and manufacturing operations. Qun holds a PhD in the field of knowledge engineering and artificial intelligence applied to pharmaceutical manufacturing, and has a multi-disciplinary educational background covering science, engineering and information technology. His research expertise relates to application of knowledge engineering and artificial intelligence to pharmaceutical formulations and Traditional Chinese Medicine modernisation. Qun is a PhD supervisor at the University of Bradford, and collaborates with the Shanghai Institute of Material Medica (Chinese Academy of Science) and China’s leading Tsinghua University. He has published over 30 scientific articles in major international journals and has received a number of research grants/awards. Prior to moving to the UK, Qun worked in a national chemical research institute in China. Qun is fluent in English, with Mandarin as his native language.