Advisor - Innovation
Sally Davenport, Ph.D.
Professor Sally Davenport has had an outstanding three-decade long career as an internationally regarded technology and innovation strategy specialist. Now an emeritus professor of Management at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), in Wellington, New Zealand, she is also a Fellow of the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM). Sally has a background in the physical sciences with a doctorate in Chemistry, specifically nuclear magnetic resonance. She was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Physical Chemistry Laboratory. Upon returning to New Zealand, she developed research interests centered on that science heritage: the commercialization and impact of scientific research, science-based entrepreneurship and the growth of high-tech firms as well as innovation strategy and policy.
Sally is currently a Commissioner with the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission, and chairs advisory groups for two Strategic Science Investment Fund Platforms: ‘Future Magnets and Materials Technologies’ and ‘Natural Hazards and Resilience’. Prio to this she was Director of ‘Science for Technological Innovation’, a NZ$106m mission-led National Science Challenge, which was charged with “enhancing the capacity of New Zealand to use physical sciences and engineering for economic benefit”. She has published in journals such as Research Policy, Organization Studies, Human Relations, Technovation and Science & Public Policy. She was also a Commissioner with the NZ Productivity Commission for nine years and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2018 for ‘services to science’.