Philip Shapira is Professor of Innovation Management and Policy with the Manchester Institute for Innovation Research at the Alliance Manchester Business School and also Professor of Public Policy (Part-Time) at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. He teaches and conducts research on science and innovation policy and management, emerging technologies and governance, regional innovation, and policy evaluation.

Professor Shapira currently leads the Responsible Research and Innovation Group at the Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre. For more than a decade, he led research on nanotechnology research and innovation systems as part of the NSF-sponsored Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. Professor Shapira has served as an expert panelist, advisor or project leader for international agencies, including the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank, and has held leadership positions in several European Union sponsored projects. He served as a Congressional Fellow with the US Office of Technology Assessment, United States Congress. Professor Shapira currently directs the Manchester-Atlanta-Beijing Innovation Co-Lab – a collaboration of researchers at the University of Manchester, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Beijing Institute of Technology to advance methods and analysis in emerging science, technology, and innovation management and policy. 

Professor Shapira holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning and an MA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley; an MCP from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a DipTP (Glos. Coll. Art & Design, UK). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  

Philip Shapira’s research interests include science, technology and innovation management and policy, regional innovation, and policy evaluation. Current and recent projects include research and innovation analysis in the emerging technology domains of nanotechnology, graphene, synthetic biology, green goods technologies, and next generation manufacturing technologies. He is especially interested in responsible research and innovation, and new methods to understand and anticipate developments in emerging technologies. Professor Shapira is also interested in knowledge exchange and technological adoption and diffusion, including the roles of universities, intermediaries and networks in innovation and diffusion.

Professor Shapira’s research draws on a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. He is active in advancing new approaches to using structured and unstructured data.

Professor Shapira has a strong track record in the successful supervision of doctoral and post-doctoral students, engaging them in team research and publication opportunities. He encourages prospective and well-qualified students interested in doctoral (PhD) study to contact him to discuss their research ideas, particularly if they are interested in research on the following topics:

• Emerging technologies and responsible innovation, including in synthetic biology
• Next generation manufacturing, digital fabrication, and prospects for redistributed manufacturing
• New strategies for technology diffusion and regional innovation
• International university research ventures
• New innovation models for inclusive and sustainable development: design and build
• New innovation models: social innovation