Professor Keith Ridgway

Senior Executive - Manufacturing, University of Strathclyde

Professor Keith Ridgway CBE FREng is the Senior Executive - Manufacturing at the University of Strathclyde.

Born in Manchester, Keith studied for his first degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester (UMIST) and started his career as a Special Apprentice at Mather and Platt Ltd, Manchester. He worked as a design engineer at Kennedy and Donkin Consulting Engineers, Manchester before studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester, supported by Shell International Marine. After completion he returned to industry before becoming an academic with a strong desire to bring Industry and Academia closer together. In 2000, he worked with Sheffield businessman Adrian Allen to establish the AMRC with Boeing at the University of Sheffield. This mechanism of collaborative working not only extended to other sectors but was the basis of how Catapults work with industry today. In 2019 he joined the University of Strathclyde as the Exec Chair of the Advanced Forging Research Centre and established the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland. In September 2020, he was appointed as the Chair of Industry Wales by Ministerial appointment. (Welsh Government).

Professor Ridgway is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Royal Institute of Naval Architects and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. In 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. He was awarded the OBE for services to UK manufacturing industry in June 2005 and a CBE for services to Manufacturing Research in January 2012.