Kent Business School is pleased to welcome Koenraad Debackere as visiting professor. Professor Debackere holds a Chair in Innovation Management at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. His research has focused on the area of technology and innovation management and policy, the development of indicators for measuring the linkage between science and technology, the design and use of bibliometric indicators for science policy purposes and the role of entrepreneurial universities in economic development. Professor Debackere has published in journals, such as the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Research Policy, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, R&D Management, and Scientometrics. In 1993, 1995 and 1997 he has won Best Research Paper Awards from the American Academy of Management and the Decision Sciences Institute. He has also been an invited professor in the area of Innovation Management in various academic MBA programs, incl. Manchester Business School, Insead, Politecnico di Milano, Tilburg University, and Chalmers University of Technology.
Professor Debackere has been a recipient of multiple research grants from international and national funding bodies and carried out work for the European Commission, OECD, and a wide range of other organisations. He is also actively engaged in technology transfer activity as managing director of K.U. Leuven Research & Development and Chairman of the Gemma Frisius Fonds, the venture fund of his university. He is the co-founder and chairman of Leuven.Inc, the innovation network of Leuven high-tech entrepreneurs. He is a board member of IWT-Vlaanderen, the Flemish government agency that supports science and technology development in Flemish industry. Since 2005, he has also been the general manager of K.U.Leuven.
Professor Debackere has been working with Professor Meyer on a range of topics, including university-industry technology transfer, the rise of China in science and technology as well as bibliometric studies of emerging scientific disciplines and novel technologies.