New Research Associate joins the Sustainable Technologies Business Acceleration Hub

The Sustainable Technologies Business Acceleration Hub (STBAH) welcomes Dr Laurent Perge as the new Research Associate.

DR LAURENT PERGE, NEW RESEARCH ASSOCIATE FOR THE SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES BUSINESS ACCELERATION HUB

The Sustainable Technologies Business Acceleration Hub (STBAH) has confirmed the appointment of Dr Laurent Perge as the newly appointed Research Associate for the business acceleration programme. Dr Laurent Perge takes over from Dr Jason Camp who had held the post for 2 years.

Laurent will be responsible for continuing to build the relationships between SMEs and the University of Bath, which will involve undertaking technical business development and engagement activities as well as research project development associated with the programme. This will relate to the technology needs of potential entrepreneurs, aligning and developing new sustainable technologies, and developing collaborative technology development opportunities with appropriate researchers.

Dr Perge received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the Université Montpellier 2 in June 2006. During his graduate studies at the Université Montpellier 2 (2006-2008), he visited, as exchange student, the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, worked with Prof Philippe G Merle (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) on self-healing resins for aerospace applications, and undertook a research project with Dr Mike Robitzer (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, France) on the use of renewable polymers as support of fluorescent molecules as sensors for explosives. He then completed his PhD in 2011 under the supervision of Prof Philippe Legrand and Dr Mike Robitzer (Université Montpellier 1/Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, France) on the production, characterisation and pharmaceutical evaluation of gastro-retentive composite solid lipid microparticles for the extended release of drugs.

Following his PhD, he was employed as R&D Engineer in the private contract research organisation Rescoll (Bordeaux, France) to work on several BtoB and collaborative projects with different industries and universities (2012-2016). After a career break of two years where he travelled in several countries around the world, he joined the University of Limerick in Ireland as postdoctoral researcher (2017-2019) before joining the University of Bath (since 2019), first as Visiting Researcher/Research Assistant in the department of Chemical Engineering, now as Action Researcher for the Sustainable Technologies Business Acceleration Hub, taking over Jason Camp’s role who is moving to a position in a company. His role encompasses facilitating interactions between SMEs and researchers at the University of Bath and developing new research collaborations.”

Talking about his new role, Laurent, says,

“I am thrilled of this opportunity to bridge SMEs in the West of England, my “new” land of adoption, with researchers of the University of Bath. I am looking forward to welcoming the possibility to further develop research collaborations in sustainable technologies and discussing with the different actors of STBAH and CSCT about their research interests.”

The role is a fixed term with funding available until the STBAH programme completes in March 2021 and Dr. Perge will be aligned with the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies department at the University of Bath.

Over the last 2 years the STBAH has cultivated a number of exciting new research collaborations with the University of Bath supporting SMEs with the development of their products. In his new role Laurent will continue to develop those relationships already established and develop and identify appropriate research and development opportunities.

Further information about the Sustainable Technologies Business Acceleration Hub which is funded under the EU European Regional Development Fund, can be found on the website here.