Professor Ron Matthews

Background

Ron Matthews graduated from the University of Glasgow with a doctorate in Economic development. Subsequently, he spent a year at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya, funded by the award of a Robert McNamara World Bank Fellowship, and this was followed by a research fellowship at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. On return from Africa, Professor Matthews became a Research Fellow at the University of Lund, Sweden, before being awarded successive NATO Research Fellowships to fund fieldwork at the Pentagon, Washington DC as well as a research position at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. Upon joining Cranfield University at the UK Defence Academy, Professor Matthews developed a research focus on the relationship between defence and development, which formed part of his defence economics lectures. In 2000, he was promoted to the Cranfield University Chair in Defence Economics. Shortly thereafter, he became a Visiting Professor at the Korean National Defense University, Seoul, and from 2007 to 2014, relocated to Singapore, where he was awarded a second Chair in Defence Economics at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. From 2001 to 2014, he was an Adjunct Professor at the Birmingham University Business School, lecturing MBA international business modules in Hong Kong, Singapore and Mauritius. Between 2022 and 2024, Professor Matthews became the first recipient of the Tawazun Chair in Defence and Security Capability at Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He presently holds Visiting Professorships at Cranfield University, the Republic of Indonesia Defence University and the Baltic Defence College, Estonia. His current research interests focus on defence industrialisation (particularly in relation to the Middle East and Asia-Pacific), countertrade, technology transfer and civil-military integration. Professor Matthews has lectured at Harvard University (US), Tsinghua University (China) and Cambridge University (UK), and numerous other universities and institutions in North and South America, Europe, Africa and the Far East.

Clients

Professor Matthews is engaged in consultancy work on offset effectiveness for such clients as the UK Ministry of Defence, major European defence manufacturers and foreign offset authorities.

Publications

• Articles in journals
• Books