He was responsible for the ‘Powell Report’ on Postgraduate Education for SERC which has led to significant changes in such training, especially the development of the Engineering Doctoral and the IGDS programme.  This has led him to recent studies concerning the promotion of creativity and innovation in designers.  His own creative leadership skills have been explored in a major study funded by the DTI.  He was co-initiator of Salford's industry driven IGDS programme on IT for construction.  He was a member of EPSRC/ESRC's Link programme linking People and ICT.  

He developed the CIOB's strategy for research and was part of its OSTEM expert mission to Japan. He was a former Chair of the North West Enterprise Forum. He has undertaken a major project with Brazilian partners to improve construction in that country.  He led the £2 million NWDA project, known as ‘Bouncing Higher’, which ensured higher wealth creation through innovation of the small enterprises in the north of the UK. He also co-ordinated the European Universities Associations major programme exploring the relationships between universities and their creative city-regions. He ws a Director of Community Finance Solutions – a university community enterprise helping the developments of ‘community banks’ and ‘affordable housing’ using Community Land Trusts which won the Award for the most innovative project in the North West in 2001. Finally, he was a member of the Regional Assembly's Knowledge Economy Priority Group. He has led a major development for the Czech Republic on introducing an innovative Knowledge Transfer programme to their industries and universities.

He was a member of the HEFCE’s Business and Community Committee and with their support led a consortium of five British Universities benchmarking themselves against the five best enterprise Universities in the rest of Europe with a view to developing ‘performance metrics and drivers’ for University Third Stream activity, known as UPBEAT – www.upbeat.eu.com. This has led to a pioneering way of structuring staff development for university academics to improve the levels and qualities of their engagement with business and the community. Using this approach he has increased the income to his own university per annum to around £15 million, representing over 10% of the annual University budget, with a considerable contribution of funding for new project/process development, mainly in community and social enterprise developments.

Present Roles and Interests:

Emeritus Professor Salford University; Honorary Professor Glasgow University; UK Academic Director of the PASCAL Universities for a Modern Renaissance Programme; Ambassador for Social Entrepreneurship in Higher Education ; Ambassador for the Leonardo European Corporate Learning Awards; Director of UPBEAT and Smart City Futures and; Member of the New Club of Paris 

He has published over 300 refereed academic papers, 13 books and has received over £34 million of financial support for his research, developments and information transfer studies. He has an international network of over 30 design and action learning researchers who are brought together to tackle major projects. His explorations include team building and simultaneous engineering for Lucas Industries, the development of Command and Control training simulations for the National Fire Services College and the Metropolitan Police Force, and achieving Cultural Change with busy Chartered Builders. His other recent research studies involve: creating and evaluating a portfolio of virtual reality demonstrators for the construction industry under LINK IDAC; developing an Action Learning programme to empower “cultural change for innovation” in small and medium enterprises. He is a non-Executive Director of USE Ltd and the Excellence North Awards.

He was responsible for the Powell Report on Postgraduate Education for SERC which has led to significant changes in such training, especially the development of the Engineering Doctoral and the IGDS programme. This has led him to recent studies concerning the promotion of creativity and innovation in designers. His own creative leadership skills have recently been explored in a recent major study funded by the DTI. He is also co-initiator of Salford's industry driven IGDS programme on IT for construction. . He is currently a member of EPSRC/ESRC's Link programme linking People and ICT.

He was a member of the HEFCE’s Business and Community Committee and with their support led a consortium of five British Universities benchmarking themselves against the five best enterprise Universities in the rest of Europe with a view to developing ‘performance metrics and drivers’ for University Third Stream activity, known as UPBEAT – www.upbeat.eu.com. This has led to a pioneering way of structuring staff development for university academics to improve the levels and qualities of their engagement with business and the community. Using this approach he has increased the income to his own university per annum to around £15 million, with a considerable contribution of funding for new project/process development, mainly in community and social enterprise developments. He was appointed an Ambassador for Social Entrepreneurship in Higher Education by HEFCE/UnLtd.