James Powell | Observatory PASCAL

Developing effective professionals' training strategy
Communication and the education of professionals especially those in the design and construction industry.
‘informing and enabling systems” - using cost effective digital media to enable wealth-creating developments for working people
Creative Cities and Regions and the university response
Enterprise Development in SME’s
Wealth Creation in Region and Community

Recent research, development and consultancy and organisations:

Design, production and application of national/European award winning multi-media training packages
UPBEAT – University Partnership for Benchmarking Enterprise and Associated Technologies – an effective way of driving University Reach Out to become more cost effective
‘Virtuous knowledge sharing’, partnering, cultural change, ‘consilient’ and blended learning, and the use of benchmarking to drive innovative and continuous improvement in university outreach
Developing Action and E-Learning programmes to empower “cultural change for innovation” in small and medium enterprises;
Developing benchmarking and staff development tools for academic entrepreneurs; exploring Client centred approaches to improving British Construction; and developing interactive policy guidance and support for ‘design for sustainability’.
Creating and evaluating a portfolio of virtual reality demonstrators for the construction industry;

Qualifications, Recognitions, Positions, Memberships:

Academic: BSc (Building Science, 1^st Hons), MSc (Design Technology), PhD (Psycho-physics), DSc (Informing Design Technologies), AUMIST,
Professional: C Eng, Eur Ing,, FIOA, FIMgt, FRSA, FCIOB,. FASI, MInst D.
Taylor Woodrow Prize, 1967; British Interactive Multi Media Award, 1978; European Multi Media Award, 1979; Artificial Intelligence in Learning Award, 1983; Bangermann IT Challenge for SMEs (British Best), 1990; Queen’s Award for Higher and Further Education (Construct IT), 1999; Shell LIVEWire North West Enterprise Award, 2001; North West Excellence Award for Innovative Excellence, 2002.
OBE for "services to science and to engineering research and education".
Chairman of CONTACT – the Collaborator between the four universities of Greater Manchester
Chair of the Innovation Park Steering Committee, developing Salford for the Knowledge Economy.
Past Chairman of EPSRC's Engineering Education and Training Committee member Engineering Board.
Coordinator of SERC/EPSRC's IT Awareness

Selected Publications:

13 books and more than 150 refereed academic papers
Powell Report on Post-graduate Education
Powell. J.A. The Noble Art of Academic Enterprise, in the Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society – The Percival Lecture, March 2000
Powell, J.A., Harloe, M and Goldsmith, M, Achieving Cultural Change and Embedding Academic Enterprise – A Case study, in Beyond the Entrepreneurial University? In ‘Global Challenges and Institutional Responses’, OECD, Paris, March 2001. p 35-48

History