John's has held positions in research, Government agencies, and consulting with ACIL Allen. His PhD from Sydney University was followed by postdoctoral appointments at UCLA and ANU. He worked in Departments responsible for the environment, science and industry. He also worked at the OECD. He retired as Deputy Secretary and Chief Science Adviser in 1996. After leading the ANU's commercial arm and serving as Acting Director at AIMS he started consulting in 2001. John was a non-executive Director of the Australian Genome Research Facility 2015-23. He was awarded a Centenary of Federation medal for his strategi contribution to Australian R&D.

Dr John Bell, after an early successful career as a research chemist, switched to science and technology policy and program development and has been contributing in that area in increasingly important roles for the past twenty years.

Roles and responsibilities of particular relevance are:
- development and introduction of the Management and Investment Company Scheme (1983-84);
- appointment to Head of OECD's Science and Technology Policy Division; a position he filled with great distinction (1984-88);
- appointment to his current positions of Deputy Secretary ( 1991) and concurrently Chief Science Adviser (1992) in DITAC;
- member of the ASTEC Review Committee (1991-92), Australia Prize Committee, Co-ordination Committee on Science and Technology, and the Defence Industry Committee;
- Director of the Australian Technology Group Ltd.

These illustrate the breadth and importance of Dr Bell's contribution to the development of Australia's science, technology and industry policy, and related programs.