Professor Richard A Williams FIMM FIChemE CEng is an innovator and academic and holds the post of Vice Chancellor at Heriot-Watt University, based in Scotland, UAE and Malaysa. He graduated in Mineral Technology from Imperial College and has worked extensively as a postgraduate and research academic with Rio Tinto, Anglo American and De Beers. He has been involved in product innovation in software for particle processing and separation, sensors for in-plant imaging and advocating development of energy storage systems using cryogenic liquids. He is an advisor to The Lloyds Register Foundation, trustee of The Carnegie Trust for Universities and The Entrepreneurial Scotland Foundation, a former recent Board Member of British Geological Survey. Currently he is a Non-Executive Director of Scottish Enterprise and a co-director of the UAE-UK Business Council. He is a Fellow and past Vice President of The Royal Academic of Engineering, The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences, Royal Society of Edinburgh and professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an editor of Particuology, Minerals Engineering and IChemE CHERD (Particle Technology)

Professor Williams is a world-leading innovator in engineering whose research in particle technology and instrumentation has been the subject of extensive publications and found widespread application. His pioneering work in application of process tomographic instrumentation in minerals engineering, scale-up of colloidal/emulsion processes for manufacturing of consumer products and software for optimising handling of nuclear waster has also translated into commercial success, with beneficial impact on society. His personal leadership in different forms of innovation arising across and between university and industry has been recognised in several significant awards. This has opened up new opportunities for collaboration within and between countries.