Key details
George Tsekouras
Associate Professor on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
George has led research in innovation and entrepreneurship in areas such as managing open innovation for SMEs, peer-to-peer learning networks, innovation coaching, new product development, public-private innovation partnerships etc. George is the Innovation Chair of the British Academy of Management (BAM). He was the Director of CENTRIM, the Centre for Change, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at the University of Brighton between 2017-2023.
He has been the co-ordinator of a number of major research programmes on innovation and entrepreneurship such as INSPIRE which looked at best practices of Open Innovation in SMEs to support the professionalization of Open Innovation within SMEs (www.inspire-smes.com), SPARK which looked into the innovation ecosystem for Social Enterprises (www.sparksocialenterprise.org) and RAPPORT which looked at best practices to connect SMEs to the public or private research organisations. He was also the lead academic for the work that develop the innovation coaching scheme for the EIC Accelerator, the flagship EU programme for innovation in SMEs.
He is the founder of the Profitnet programme which has supported a number of peer-to-peer learning networks in UK, Ireland and South Africa with the participation of more than 2,000 SMEs around the world.
He has a first degree in mechanical engineering and a DPhil in innovation management from SPRU at University of Sussex. He is the author of a number of papers in academic journals, books and international conferences while he has designed and delivered many executives training and consultancy programmes.
Recognition
- Innovation Track Leader British Academy of Management (BAM)
Research / Scholarly interests
George is interested in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship on topics such as managing open innovation for SMEs, enabling innovation in SMEs through peer-to-peer learning networks, empower entrepreneurship through innovation coaching, innovation management for non-high tech SMEs, planning and implementing new product development for SMEs, fostering SMEs’ linkages with external research organizations, public-private partnerships etc.
Key funded projects
- Spark Social Enterprise funded by EU, Interreg 2 Seas programme between January 2016 – March 2020:
- INSPIRE - Integrated Support of Open Innovation Professionalization initiative funded by EU, DG Innovation & Research DG between April 2016 – July 2019 – the project devised a special methodology to support SME to plan and execute Open Innovation strategies
- Academic Leader of Green Growth Platform programme, a business-innovation network addressing the major challenge of enabling and improving SME business performance and environmental sustainability between May 2014 – June 2023. An Impact Case Study was submitted to REF2021 rated with top score (4*)
- RAPPORT (Building Rapport Between Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Public or Private Research Capabilities) funded by EU, DG Research, SME Unit (Consortium Co-ordinator) between January 2010 – November 2012. The project explored best practices to connect SMEs with the research base, namely Universities/RTOs and/or large corporations
- Academic Director of the Profitnet programme , based on peer-to-peer Action Learning funded by the predecessor of UKRI (HEFCE - Higher Education Funding Council for England), British Council, EU Structural Funds – Supported more than 2,000 executives in UK, Republic of Ireland and South Africa between January 2004 – November 2015. An Impact Case Study submitted to REF2013 rated with top score (4*)