Matthew works as Director of Research and Senior Lecturer at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, within the University of Strathclyde’s Business School. His research examines the policy and market conditions necessary to accelerate low-carbon energy technology and business model innovation. He is a co-investigator on UKRI’s £10m EnergyREV consortium on smart, locally led energy systems, and the UK Energy Research Centre’s Community Energy Finance project.

Matthew has published ‘Financial Times 50’ ranked journal papers, written a book on accelerating low-carbon innovation, as well as commentary for national newspapers (e.g. i news) and reports for the World Energy Council. His work has received international prizes, been referenced in Parliamentary reports and covered by mainstream media (e.g. BBC, Forbes).

He holds a number of external positions too including:

• Member of Scottish Power Energy Networks' RIIO-ED2 Customer Engagement Group
• Visiting researcher at Imperial College London
• External examiner for SPRU, University of Sussex
• Elected council member of the British Institute for Energy Economics
• Trustee of environmental charity South Seeds
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Prior to joining Strathclyde he worked at Imperial College’s Centre for Environmental Policy (2012-2016) examining the effectiveness of energy innovation policies both in the UK and overseas (e.g. China, Finland). He completed his PhD at the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) at the University of Leeds (2009-2012), examining the role that business model innovation plays in driving a low-carbon energy transition.

Projects:

• Co-Investigator for the UKRI £8m Energy Revolution Research Consortium to support a smart, locally led energy system. Co-I for work packages on: (1) business and finance; and (2) policy and regulation (commenced Dec 2018). Primary Investigator for 4 month project examining Smart local energy systems for a ‘just transition'.
• Co-Investigator for the Centre for Energy Systems Integration funded project on Interdisciplinary research for energy systems integration: understanding and promoting good practice (commenced Jan 2019)
• Co-Investigator on UK Energy Research Centre funded Community Energy Finance project (commenced 2017). Lead on community energy case studies work package.
• Co-Investigator on Political hyping of new energy technologies project to explore how parliamentary processes fuel or deflate expectations surrounging low-carbon technology innovations. We focus in particular on tipping-points between political support or opposition to new technologies.

PhD supervision:

• Kirsten Brown - Low-carbon heat for low-income communities: Locally owned business models to capture mine water geothermal heat for Scotland’s ex-mining communities (ETP Industrial Doctorate, co-funded by Scottish Enterprise).
• Horacio Gonzalez - Scaling up Scotland’s emerging low-carbon energy industry.
• Rui Hu - The Chinese innovation system for wind energy: structure, functions and performance (completed 2017).