Challenges in commercializing intelligent and smart packaging systems (Intelligent and Smart Packaging 2005)

 

Cranfield University is the UK's only postgraduate technological, specialist institution. It specialises in providing high-level research and teaching in the fields of management, engineering and applied science. The University's reputation with industry and the public sector is second-to-none and it is regarded as a world leader in its specialist fields attracting students and staff from well over 100 countries. Cranfield's multi-national student body and global industrial links mean its graduates are found worldwide, making significant contributions in their fields - an enviable network of men and women with the reputation of excellence that Cranfield bestows.

A graduate of the University of Surrey in England, Clifford worked as a Materials Scientist for the UK's Ministry of Defence and since 1984 has held academic posts with Cranfield University, latterly as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University and Head of the Postgraduate Medical School. He has also held visiting posts in Göteborg, Sweden and Barcelona, and is an alumnus of INSEAD, the international management school in Fontainbleau, France.

 

Clifford's technical interests include composite materials, biomedical materials and devices, biomimetics and 'Smart' materials and structures. Over the past decade he has worked primarily as the leader of highly multidisciplinary research teams; typically including engineers and scientists, product designers and psychologists, whose principal aim has been to produce break-through products in sectors ranging from healthcare and consumer goods to aviation, for a range of multinational clients including GSK, Rolls-Royce and Dyson.

 

Clifford is a recipient of the Institute of Materials' Holliday Prize, and his expertise is frequently called upon to assist commercial clients, professional institutions around the world, and UK government agencies ranging from MOD and EPSRC to the DTI. He has held Public Awareness of Science grants from the UK's Royal Society, Millennium Fund and EPSRC, and acts as an expert for the media, appearing regularly on radio and television. He has also written for broadsheet newspapers and magazines, including New Scientist and the London Financial Times.

 

Clifford is a non-executive director of Sudbury House Hotel and Cranfield Enterprises Ltd, and the non-executive chairman of Cranfield Management Development Ltd. His most recent public exhibition on biomimetics opened at the Think Tank in Birmingham, England in October 2003.