Dr Simon Hepworth

Director of Knowledge Exchange, Research England

Dr Simon Hepworth is the Director of Knowledge Exchange at Research England, joining in April 2025.

Simon leads policy development and delivery of knowledge exchange functions, focusing on how higher education institutions contribute to knowledge exchange and commercialisation.

His responsibilities include overseeing Research England’s knowledge exchange programmes, including the Higher Education Innovation Fund and Knowledge Exchange Framework, and providing strategic leadership across UK Research and Innovation to support the government’s economic growth initiatives.

Previously, Simon served as Director of Enterprise at Imperial College, where he built a 140-person innovation team over 10 years. His accomplishments include:

  • developing 57 spin-out companies since 2019, with over £500 million in investment and four acquisitions
  • creating key innovation initiatives including the Enterprise Lab, Imperial Venture Mentoring Service, and White City Incubator
  • serving as President of TenU, where he led development of the University Spinout Investment Terms software guide for university spin-out investment terms

Simon’s career spans corporate roles at Ford Motor Company and Visteon, artificial intelligence startup leadership at TherML, and extensive work building UK capabilities in science and technology innovation.

Simon holds a DPhil in neural network based control, University of Oxford, and a first-class honours degree in electronic and mechanical systems engineering, University of Salford.

Last updated: 1 May 2025

This is the website for UKRI: our seven research councils, Research England and Innovate UK. Let us know if you have feedback or would like to help improve our online products and services.