Roy Sandbach

Roy is President of the Royal Society of Chemistry Industry & Technology Council. Until September 2017, he was Director of the £40m National Innovation Centre for Ageing at Newcastle University. He remains engaged with the University as Professor of Practice in Ageing Science & Innovation.

From 2012 to 2016 Roy led the development of the regional innovation strategy for North East England and was the founding Chair of the North East LEP Innovation Board. He remains a board member.

Prior to 2012, Roy spent 31 years with the Procter & Gamble Company, holding global R&D positions and leading inno-vation programmes in Europe and the Far East including China. One of his inventions is a $150M business in the US.

Nationally, Roy is a non-executive director with the Technology Services Association. He sits on the Advisory Board for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity and the BEIS Advisory Board for Industrial Strategy & Smart Specialisa-tion.

He chairs Northern Accelerator, the North East Universities research commercialisation programme (involving Newcas-tle, Durham, Northumbria and Sunderland) and is an Advisory Board member with Newcastle University Business School and Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University.

He is a trustee at the Centre for Life, a public science centre in Newcastle, a trustee of the Reece Foundation and a gov-ernor at the Beacon School in Sunderland.

Roy was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2017 for services to science, innovation & skills.