HELEN LAWTON SMITH

Professor of Entrepreneurship, Department of Management, and is Director of the Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, Birkbeck, University of London

Helen Lawton Smith is Professor of Entrepreneurship, Department of Management, and is Director of the Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, Birkbeck, University of London. She is an economic geographer. Her research career has focused on the links between entrepreneurship, innovation, public policy and regional development in national and international contexts. She is the Founder and Research Director of the Oxfordshire Economic Observatory (oeo.geog.ox.ac.uk) and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University.  

Helen Lawton Smith has a degree in Economics from the University of London and a DPhil in Geography from the University of Oxford. She is Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Department of Management, Birkbeck, University of London, and was Head of Department between 2008 and 2010. She is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and Founder and Director of Research, Oxfordshire Economic Observatory, School of Geography, Oxford University, an independent research centre, which contributes to evidence-based policy making. She has been a visiting Professor at Sussex University and at Halmstad University (Sweden). She has published 10 books, 65 journal articles in international journals and over 30 book chapters. A particular focus of her is in the impact of higher education on economic development and government. Her book, Universities, Innovation and the Economy Routledge (2006) dealt with the issue of universities’ engagement with wider communities, particularly through labour markets for the highly skilled.