Professor Nola Hewitt-Dundas

Biography

She was, until recently, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Transnational Education and Professor of Innovation Management and Policy at Queen’s University Belfast. She previously held the position of Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences until September 2025, after having served as Dean and Head of Queen’s Business School, where her leadership was recognised by the Institute of Directors award of NI Public Sector Director of the Year.

Her research, which has been published consistently in the leading academic journals, focuses on innovation systems and the effect of public sector intervention to enhance innovation success, business growth and profitability. Having been involved in over 30 externally funded research and consultancy projects her most recent was ‘Smart Nano NI’, a £63.9m project where she brings social science to an engineering project on advanced prototyping and smart manufacturing methods for nano-photonics. This she conducted alongside a multi-year program of research for the Department for Economy (NI) and Invest NI on science and innovation policy.

As a thought leader on innovation and business policy, Nola was appointed by the UK Prime Minister in September 2022, as non-executive member on the Board of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST), with responsibility for an £9.2bn per annum research and innovation budget. Her intellectual esteem is evident in appointment as a full sub-panel member of the UK REF2021 exercise as well as subject expert for the International Academic Journal Guide.

Current recognition of leadership includes her role as assessor for Hong Kong Grants Council on Research Excellence and appointment to the International advisory board of the University of Turku, Business School. She has advised various public sector organisations including the Northern Ireland Assembly, the former Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, EU, OECD, Government of Mexico through the World Bank, been a Research Fellow of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (London), a UK thought-leader with UKRI on the role of social sciences in industry, and was advisor to the Northern Ireland Minister for Finance and Personnel on public sector reform.