Contact Professor Simon Pollard

Areas of expertise

  • Carbon, Climate and Risk
  • Environmental Policy
  • Managing Corporate Sustainability
  • Waste Management and Resource Efficiency

Background

An environmental engineer (Imperial College, PhD; Cranfield University, DSc) with over 170 journal publications, Simon is a leading authority in environmental risk governance, having directed Institutes for Government and the Research Councils; drafted Government guidelines on environmental risk; and led risk centres for EPSRC and NERC. Simon's scholarship is to the fields of environmental engineering, preventative risk management and regulatory design, with recent contributions exploring risk governance in the international water sector.

Simon served Cranfield for over 20 years as Head of Department, Dean of Faculty, as a Member of Council, and Pro-Vice Chancellor for the School of Water, Energy and Environment (2014-2021) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor International (2018-2024). He sat on the University’s Executive for 10 years and chaired Cranfield’s Board for Energy and Environment; Health and Safety Committee, and the university's International Committee. As PVC International, he devised and led the Internationalisation Strategy, progressing a set of strategic partnerships with with Muscat (2017-22), Purdue (2018-2024) and Jiangsu Universities (2018-). His work on 'responsible internationalisation' led to a reset of Cranfield’s approach to academic partnerships in a changing geopolitical climate, and it renewed Cranfield's approach to knowledge diplomacy in support of UUKi's commitment to international postgraduate education. Simon was awarded the OBE in 2020.

Research opportunities

Simon's research speaks directly to the green economy and it seeks to reconcile society's unease about pollution with the responsibilities that organisations hold for its safe management. Simon has worked extensively overseas, with visiting professorships at the University of South Australia, Jiangsu University and, most recently, the University of Salerno (2024).

Current activities

Beyond academe, Simon has been a member of the Government’s Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment; the joint engineering institutions’ Hazards Forum; BBSRC’s Beringer Panel; HMT’s Engineering and Interdependencies Expert Group; and he was an editor of Science of the Total Environment for 16 years. He is an active contributor to the Royal Academy of Engineering, of which he is a Fellow, and the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) where he is a Non-Executive Board member. Simon was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2020.

Clients

  • Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
  • Natural Environment Research Council
  • Philadelphia Water Department
  • Water Research Foundation (US)

Publications

Articles In Journals