Panel Discussion - How academics and businesses work together

When academic expertise meets business ambition, the results can be transformative. This session explores successful partnerships between universities and industry, showcasing how research and real-world applications combine to solve challenges, foster innovation, and drive growth in the space sector. Learn how to build meaningful collaborations that deliver impactful results for both academia and business.

Speaker Information

Chair - Kathie Bowden

Kathie is the Skills Manager for the Satellite Applications Catapult, which she joined following roles in Industry (BP, British Aerospace and as an independent consultant), in academia (NERC Environmental Systems Science Centre, Institute for Environmental Analytics) and in Government (UK Space Agency). Kathie has focussed on skills issues across the space sector since 2011 and is a respected contributor to a number of national and international programmes. She sits on several advisory boards and supports the regional space clusters across their workforce requirements. She is responsible for SPIN and is now developing Workforce Foresighting to consider emerging skills requirements. 

Dr Francesca Faedi, Academic Liaison for Commercial and Innovation  

An accomplished academic and an expert on the Space Economy. With over 15 years of academic research experience (astrophysics) and recent strides as an Innovation Manager in the Space Sector, Francesca brings a unique blend of skills and a passion for interdisciplinary research. Her strengths are people skills and the ability to link academic research with industry needs to create high-impact projects and commercialise research. Francesca has supported and delivered collaborative technology and commercial development projects with government, academia, and industry stakeholders, securing approximately £1 million in funding with a 34% success rate. 

Francesca lectures on the Space Economy at the University of Leicester School of Business and has strong ties with the UK space sector, nationally and internationally. 

Dr Leah-Nani Alconcel, Associate Professor of Space Engineering

Dr Alconcel is a spacecraft engineer and associate professor in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. She is the Birmingham lead for the Midlands Space Cluster. She designed and runs the MSc programme in Space Engineering. She has research interests in payload instrument development and calibration, space situational awareness (SSA) from space-based platforms, data management and data access for space, and improving inclusivity in research culture. Currently, she is developing a high frequency (sub-THz) inverse synthetic aperture radar system for space-based SSA with colleagues in the School of Engineering at Birmingham. 

Prof Stuart Marsh, University of Nottingham 

Stuart Marsh is a Professor of Geospatial Engineering specialised in the applications of Earth Observation to geoscience challenges. He is particularly interested in geohazards, such as landslides and subsidence, and the impacts of mining, including ground motion and pollution. He has worked at the University of Nottingham for eleven years and been the Director of the Nottingham Geospatial Institute for the past three years.

Before this he worked at the British Geological Survey, where he was Director of the Geoscience Technologies Programme that was responsible for developing and implementing a range of technologies across the survey. These included earth observation, shallow geophysics, modelling, visualisation, and digital field data capture. He has over 100 publications, graduates an average of one PhD student each year and is the Nottingham Director of the EPSRC-funded Doctoral Training Centre in Geospatial Systems. He represents the UK on the Programme Board of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations and advises the European Space Agency on their proposed hyperspectral satellite CHIME.