Education
Birkenhead School 1951 - 1963
University of Birmingham 1963 - 66
B Sc, Class I (Honours) in Physics (with subsidiary Electrical Engineering and Mathematics)
SUMMARY OF EXPERIENCE
As a member of the UK Senior Civil Service, between 1985 and 1997 in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Cabinet Office my experience, at senior administrative levels included:
a. Head of DTI's National Measurement Directorate: responsibility for formulating, procuring, contracting, monitoring and evaluating the UK's £34 million pa programme of R & D and technology transfer in measurement science and measurement standards; responsible for the contract under which the National Physical Laboratory, Britains National Measurement Standards Laboratory, was operated for the government.
b. Director member of the Alvey Board: responsibility for programme administration, programme and project monitoring and evaluation for the UK's £350 million Alvey Programme of collaborative research and development in information technology.
c. Director of DTI's Laboratories Unit, responsible for implementing the Government's decision to privatise DTI's 3 main research laboratories, in particular the contractorisation of NPL;
d. UK member of the EC's ESPRIT Management Committee, its Measurement Standards and Testing Regulatory Committee and its Senior Officials Group on Information Security (and, briefly, its Senior Officials Group on IT Standards): close involvement in the formulation, procurement, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of international collaborative research programmes in IT, measurement and standards and information security and in the associated negotiations at the political level, bilaterally and multilaterally.
e. As a member of the DTI's central evaluation group throughout this period, and via my direct operational responsibilities, I have been closely involved in policy and management relating to the evaluation of government R & D and procurement programmes. I have lectured on policy and programme evaluation methodology at the UK's Civil Service College
f. Broad experience of IT strategy and procurement as member or chairman of numerous DTI committees and boards relating to information systems policy and strategy, procurement and project implementation, in particular the networking of DTI between 1992 and 1996 (The Osprey project). I also co-ordinated policy at the Cabinet Office on the follow-up to government.direct: the 1996 green paper on the use of IT to deliver UK Government services to the public.
Current status
Self employed following early retirement from the UK Senior Civil Service, March 1997; member of the UK National Measurement System Working Group on Software Support for Metrology; consultant advising the National Physical Laboratory and Sira Group plc on handling intellectual property rights issues in the INTErSECT Faraday Partnership on Intelligent Sensors (1997/98), on the European Commission's panel of experts for the EU Research Framework programme and chaired the committee that reported on the launch and first year activities of the Commission's Information society technologies programme (1999/2000). I am a memberr of the Measurement Advisory Committee's Working Group on Software Support for Metrology. My voluntary activities include being a Trustee of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG), chairing it's Finance and Audit Committee and representing it on the Church Investors' Group. I am also Churchwarden of St Paul's, Clapham, a member of Clapham Deanery Synod and the Southwark Diocesan Board of Finance and Treasurer of Southwark Cathedral's £10 Million Millennium Appeal.
Personal
Languages:
English: mother tongue
French: fair
General Background and Interests
I have a full UK driving licence. I take a practical interest in computing and the use of IT.
Roger Hird
14 June 2005