Catalyst has announced the appointment of one of Northern Ireland’s best-known science and technology leaders, Dr Rob Grundy, as its new director of innovation partnerships.
Catalyst is an independent, non-profit science and technology hub with a vision of opportunity for all through innovation and supporting entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland from its campuses in Belfast and Derry.
Dr Grundy has spent over 25 years in the pharma and BioTech sector. He was a member of Matrix, the science and technology policy panel for the Northern Ireland government for over a decade, chairing the organisation until 2024.
He also represented NI on the Chief Scientific Advisors Network for the UK and is a visiting lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast.
Since 2022 he has served as CEO at Intelligent OMICS Ltd, an AI driven drug discovery company and has previously held senior roles in the sector as CEO of CIGA Healthcare and Health Innovation Research Alliance Northern Ireland (HIRANI). He began his career in drug discovery and development at Schering-Plough and GlaxoSmithKline, before moving on to Cerebricon and Almac Discovery.
In his new role, Dr Grundy will be responsible for bringing stakeholders from the private and public sectors and academia together to take advantage of the collaborative opportunities that exist in NI’s innovation sector.
“I’m delighted that we have been able to bring in someone of Rob’s genuinely unrivalled expertise and vast experience drawn from years of working across Northern Ireland’s knowledge economy, in both the private sector and academia,” said Steve Orr, chief executive of Catalyst.
“He will have a central role to play in the evolution of Catalyst as a hub for innovation and collaboration, by nurturing and developing the strong relationships we already have with our partners in NI’s universities, in business and at all levels of government in Northern Ireland, the UK and Ireland.”
Dr Grundy added: “This is an exciting and unique opportunity to play a part in helping Catalyst foster a culture of ambition in Northern Ireland. I am looking forward to working with our partners to identify potential opportunities to bring businesses together with academia and government and facilitate conversations that are credible and authentic to each of them.
“Catalyst is a unique organisation which is well placed to see those opportunities which private sector companies can’t, or which government or academia finds challenging, and acting as the glue that brings those component parts together to create something bigger and more meaningful for society.”
In 2024 Catalyst marked the 25th anniversary of its formation as a Good Friday Agreement project as the Northern Ireland Science Park, with the goal of creating a self-sustaining, internationally recognised science park and research-driven centre for knowledge-based industries.