Leadership and vision morning panel discussion

Jeremy Watson CBE FREng is Professor of Engineering Systems at UCL. Until recently he was also Chief Scientist and Engineer at the Building Research Establishment (BRE). A past DLUHC (MHCLG) Chief Scientific Adviser, he has senior industrial experience as BOC (Edwards) plc Technology Director, and Global Research Director at Arup.

Jeremy is a Fellow and Trustee of the Royal Academy of Engineering (and recent past Chair of the National Engineering Policy Committee). His interests include the cross-disciplinary systems challenges of achieving Net Zero, cybersecurity at the ‘Edge’, sustainable engineering, systems thinking, research strategy and innovation processes.

Jeremy is currently Director and PI of the seven-year £24m PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity funded by EPSRC under the £35m Securing Digital Technologies At the Periphery (SDTaP) initiative, co-developed by Jeremy. PETRAS comprises 22 universities and has 120+ industrial and government user partners.

Brigitte Amoruso is the Senior Climate Change and Energy Specialist at Make UK, the Manufacturers’ Association. With a background in sciences (MSCs in biology and environmental analytical chemistry) and having worked in regulatory and advocacy European regional and global roles in leading corporations across a variety of industry sectors from agrochemicals (Syngenta) to animal health (Novartis), pharmaceuticals (Pfizer) and chemicals (Cobalt Institute- global industry association of miners,  producers and traders of cobalt), she has a deep understanding of how industry works while grasping technical issues with ease. She is passionate about tackling cross-cutting policy issues and has successfully helped industry coalitions and groups overcome a variety of challenges. She is delighted to now be able to support the UK manufacturing sector in its transition to net zero.

Russ is the High Value Manufacturing Catapults chief engineer for net-zero, setting strategy for HVM Catapult and overseeing the cross-centre programmes of work which help UK manufacturing move towards it’s net-zero obligations.  Russ has over 20 years of experience in energy generation, heavy engineering and the foundation industries.