The Henry Royce Institute (Royce), the UK’s national institute for advanced materials research and innovation has appointed Dr Stuart Kitney as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
Stuart will join the Royce Leadership Team with responsibility for the Institute’s Technology Platform capabilities. He will lead on the development of Royce’s research technology platform strategy, leveraging the Institute’s world-leading facilities and supporting Royce Technology Platform leads who are distributed across Royce Partners.
He will undertake the role on secondment from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) where he is currently Head of Regional Strategy. NPL collaborates closely with Royce across several major programmes including the Materials 4.0 CDT, National Technical Platform for Materials Innovation (NTPMI), Innovation Accelerator programmes Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability (CEAMS) and Greater Manchester Electrochemical Hydrogen Cluster and several Industrial Collaboration Programme and Analysis for Innovators projects.
Commenting on his appointment, Stuart said:
“I’m delighted to join Royce, and to provide leadership on its core capabilities which have been established through significant investment from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to enable innovative advanced materials research.
“I’m looking forward promoting the use of Royce platforms to accelerate technology translation through small to large industrial organisations as well as supporting the wider research community.
“We want to make sure Royce’s advanced equipment is fully used to help both universities and businesses develop new materials and technologies that support the UK’s economic growth and social goals.”
Dr Stuart Kitney is a senior scientific leader with experience spanning academia, industry, and national research institutions. As Head of Regional Strategy with NPL, he is dedicated to expanding the impact of Measurement Science (Metrology) in driving innovation across UK industry.
Dr Kitney has held several leadership roles during over seven years at NPL, including Head of Department for Quantum Technologies, Training, and Data Science, reflecting his broad expertise to advancing cutting-edge science. In each of these roles, he has contributed to shaping national capabilities in emerging technologies and skills development.
Prior to his time at NPL, Dr Kitney was Lead Scientist at Polar OLED, a spin-out from the University of Hull specialising in new liquid crystal material development for OLED display technologies. During his tenure, he helped the company grow from its university roots through collaborative work with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) to commercialise novel, patented materials and manufacturing processes.
Dr Kitney began his research career as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hull, where he laid the foundation for his contributions to materials science and applied research.
