Professor Richard Templer

Summary

Professor Templer holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry and the Grantham Institute.  He is the former Director  of Innovation at the Grantham Institute and the founder of their centre for climate change innovation - Undaunted - a collaboration with the Royal Institution. Undaunted is a founding partner of Cleantech for UK. He is the current Hofmann Chair in Chemistry and is a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission and advisory body to the Mayor of London.

Professor Templer was a founding member of the Membrane Biophysics Platform (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/membranebiophysics) a group that includes John Seddon, Oscar Ces, Rob Law, Nick Brooks and Yuval Elani. Their group covers a wide range of interconnected research on the physico-chemical nature of lipid membranes and its application in interpreting and controlling natural and artificial phenomena in cell membranes.

Prompted by the outcome of collaborative research on biorefining he led, Professor Templer was part of a successful bid to the European Institute for Innovation and Technology to create a Climate Knowledge Innovation Community. In 2010 he became the Director of Climate-KIC UK and Director of Education. He and his team created a programme of education to inspire climate innovators and entrepreneurs and developed and ran the UK Cleantech Accelerator, now called the Greenhouse. The education programme has now trained more than 2,000 students from across the world in the arts of environmentally sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship. The accelerator has run continuously since October 2011, funding and supporting over 150 new cleantech businesses that have between them raised over $1bn. These businesses are to be found in over 30 countries across the world and include a winner of the Earth Shot Prize, Notpla, and a key part of Octopus Energy called Krakenflex.

Professor Templer stood down from the Climate-KIC in 2015 and joined the Grantham Institute to work on creating Undaunted, formerly the Centre for Cleantech Innovation . The Centre was launched in 2021 by King Charles. It's activities  support the education and training of cleantech innovators and entrepreneurs and enhance their R&D by enabling access to the College's science and engineering ecosystem. The Royal Institution, Mayor of London, HSBC, Slaughter & May, Pollination Group, Arup and the Centre for Net Zero gave generously of their time and resources to launch the centre. The centre is also the London location for two UKRI-funded national hubs, the CO2 Removal Hub and the Centre for Greening Finance and Investment.

In his position on the London Sustainable Development Commission has led its work on Cleantech Innovation. This has resulted in Mayoral environmental, economic and spatial planning policy measures to support the creation of a Cleantech Innovation Cluster in London, a heightened profile for this within the Greater London Authority and an initiative to increase female participation in cleantech innovation.

Professor Templer advises a number of national programmes in climate innovation in Germany and Denmark, and works with private investors in climate innovation in an effort to support the acceleration of the transition to a sustainable and resilient low-carbon society.

 

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