Keynote speakers

Dr Marta Tufet

Dr Marta Tufet took on her current role as Executive Director of the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences in January 2018. She has over 10 years’ experience of developing and implementing strategic research funding and capacity strengthening initiatives in developing countries.

Before joining UKCDS, she lead the development of the UK Department of Health’s Global Health Research Programme, while on secondment from her role at Wellcome since 2009 in Global Health Research and capacity strengthening initiatives. She previously worked at Nature, the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the African Academy of Sciences in Kenya to establish the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa.

She is a Trustee of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene and of the Galapagos Conservation Trust. Marta has a PhD and BSc in Biology from Imperial College.

Professor Stuart Taberner

Professor Stuart Taberner joined RCUK in January 2017, as Director of International and Interdisciplinary Research on an 18-month secondment from the University of Leeds.

Stuart works within the Executive Directorate, which provides support to the Research Councils in collective areas of interest and is responsible for strategic focus; operational support and guidance for GCRF ODA reporting; the development of a strategic international narrative for Research Councils; and the development of the Global Challenge Research Fund to operation at programme/portfolio as well as project level.

As Professor of German at the University of Leeds, his research focuses on the relationships between politics and writing, the role of the German intellectual in the period after 1945, and literature after 1989.