Professor Kirsty Simpson

Alongside her academic role as Dean, Kirstie oversees a number of significantly-sized externally funded projects, totalling almost £40m. This means her work day-day is particularly varied but the outcome is always on ensuring excellent student experience and outcomes. More recently Kirstie’s work has focussed on the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge and the requirement and importance of the development of skills throughout the decarbonisation supply chain, contributing to the Business School being shortlisted for the Times Higher Business School of the Year in 2022.

Kirstie is chair of the Skills, Learning and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) subcommittee for the HyNet project and is therefore leading the charge in the North West for a more inclusive and diverse decarbonisation workforce. As IDRIC Academic Cluster Lead for the North West, Kirstie is very keen on maximising academic - stakeholder interaction; enhancing these relationships to create flexible and accessible learning opportunities for students and at the same time, helping industry develop the skills for their future workforce. This includes things like the use of learning mobility and the co-creation of live projects to solve real industry problem.