BACKGROUND
Jay Mitra is Professor of Business Enterprise and Innovation and Director of the Venture Academy at Essex Business School, University of Essex. He has acted as a Scientific Adviser to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and its Scientific Committee on Entrepreneurship for the OECD’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and the LEED (Local Economic and Employment) Programme at its Trento Centre and in Paris. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Luneburg, Germany, and at Bayero University, Nigeria. He has also held similar positions at University Externado. Colombia at the Institute of Management Technology, India, the School of Management, Fudan University, and the School of Public Policy at Jilin University, both in China, and at Bologna University, Italy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK. Jay Mitra also leads the International Entrepreneurship Forum (IEF) a unique network and forum for researchers, policy makers and business practitioners working on entrepreneurship, innovation and regional development issues (http://ieforums.org). He is a member of the Board of the International Network of SMEs (INSME), Rome, Italy (since 2016), and on the advisory boards of the Cambridge Innovation Academy in Cambridge, UK, the European Business Angels Network (Impact Investment Committee) and of the European Logistics Council for the Global Coalition of Efficient Logistics
CURRENT
Professor Mitra trained in the private sector in the UK, worked as a Principal Officer for local government also in the UK, specialising in economic and business development, and taught at 3 other universities before joining the University of Essex. At Essex he established the unique and highly successful School of Entrepreneurship and Business (SEB) in 2005 which preceded his contribution to the creation of Essex Business School in 2008. He also created the first International Centre for Entrepreneurship Research (ICER) leading it since its inception in 2006. In 2014-15 he re-established the MBA programme into a successful and viable project, increasing the student intake 6 times, and revised and reaccredited the course. These achievements follow the setting up pioneering Centres for Entrepreneurship at 2 other universities and the creation and ownership of 2 new businesses in the UK.
WRITING
He is the editor of the new Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies’ (ISSN No. 2393-9575 http://eie.sagepub.com) published by Sage. He is a member of various editorial boards of international refereed journals. He has written and published widely on the subject of entrepreneurship, innovation and economic development with significant contributions to international refereed journals, through books, chapters in leading research monographs, at refereed international conferences, seminars, symposia and workshops. His work has attracted best research paper awards in both the UK and the USA. His latest book is ‘Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Development’(2nd ed) (2020). This follows recent books The Business of Innovation’ was published in April, 2017, published by Sage, and Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Exchange, (2015), published by Routledge.
INTERESTS
Music, Poetry, Literature, Jazz, Photos, Tennis and Cricket!