Professor Jonathan Wallace is Professor of Innovation at Ulster University. His excellence in both Knowledge & Technology Transfer and lecturing has been recognised by his being awarded both a Distinguished Business Fellowship and Distinguished Teaching Fellowship.

Up until August 2017, he was for the previous 16 years, Director of Knowledge and Technology Transfer for the Faculty of Computing and Engineering, with direct responsibility for the commercialisation of the Faculty’s research, industrial collaboration and consultancy provision. Under Jonathan’s leadership the Faculty of Computing & Engineering generated on average 45% of the total annual consultancy income of the entire Ulster University each year for those 16 years. His personal funded income that he has generated for the University is in excess of £4.2M.

He has led the development of numerous software systems in diverse market sectors and has attained broad experience of managing successful research projects at both a local, national and international level.

Professor Wallace, having chaired the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Policy Group for Northern Ireland for the last six years has now moved to Past Chair Member. He is a member of the Learned Societies and Professional Bodies Forum for the All-Party Advisory Group on Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths for the local devolved Assembly. Jonathan is a co-founder and Deputy Chair of the Northern Ireland Science Festival Board and former Chair of the European Social Fund (ESF) Advisory Group for NI. Jonathan is also chair of OPEN-NI whose remit is to strategically promote the awareness, understanding, development and uptake of free and open source software across both the private and public sectors, as well as enhancing the competitiveness of the indigenous software sector by exploiting the opportunities offered by Open Source business models.

Jonathan has a significant track record in the field of Connected Health and is recognised as an innovator in the co-creation of user-centred Connected Health product and service solutions. He is a founder member of the TRAIL Living Lab based at the Ulster University which is a 2nd Wave Member of the European Network of Living Labs (EnoLL). He is a consultant to and sits on the Innovation Groups of a number of Health Trusts. Jonathan has been a judge for the UK national Telecare Services Association Crystal Awards for Excellence in Telehealth and Telecare, as well as a judge for the UK national eHealth Insider (eHI) awards for the last number of years. Jonathan was Chief Judge for the eHI Awards in 2017 and is also co-founder and group secretary for BCS Health NI.

He currently has a leading role in a number of regional, national and international Connected Health research projects where he is particularly applying his expertise in Co-creation, UX & Usability Engineering and Business Model Development. Jonathan leads the Ulster academic team which successfully completed Phase Zero for the EC-funded H2020 PCP MAGIC Project for Stroke Rehabilitation and he is also Dissemination and Exploitation Workpackage Leader as well as Chair of the Policy Board for the EC-funded H2020 PM18 MIDAS Project for ‘Big Data Supporting Public Health Policies’ (which includes the Health Authorities in NI, Republic of Ireland, PHE, the Basque Region and Finland).

The ‘engage’ service solution which Jonathan has led the development and exploitation of, has been significantly used across both the private and public sector as a real-time stakeholder engagement tool to gain strategic consensus. Recent exemplars include five engagements for the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, to directly shape their ‘HSC Workforce Strategy Development 2017-2026’, which was in response to the then Health Minister Michelle O’Neill’s 10 Year Strategy, which itself was in response to the findings of the Bengoa Report. Also, two engagements for DfE and MATRIX – one on Women in STEM and one on Growing the AI Industry in NI, with a further one on Skills Strategy currently at the planning stage.

A passionate advocate for the Entrepreneurial University, as outlined by Alan Gibbs, in his National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) report, Jonathan has championed entrepreneurship in Faculty staff and students for the last 18 years with a large number of successful spinouts being created under his mentorship. He is one of the judges for the Ulster University’s Shark Tank and has previously been a mentor for Prince’s Trust and Shell Livewire. Jonathan is also an Alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management from their Entrepreneurship Development Programme.

With over 99 peer-reviewed publications, Jonathan is a recognised subject matter expert on Usability, UX Design, Knowledge Engineering, Digital & Social Media, Innovation & Entrepreneurship as well as Big Data in Healthcare. He lectures on amongst others the University’s innovative multidisciplinary M.Sc. in Digital Media Communications and their BSc. Hons. in Interactive Multimedia Design as well as their undergraduate Computing degrees at Jordanstown.