Southampton welcomes Richard Westgarth to the SMMI team

Richard Westgarth of BMT has recently joined the Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute as an Adjunct Professor.  Richard has over 40 years of experience in the defence and maritime sectors as an innovation strategist and business adviser. His wealth of experience in naval and defence domains builds on his earlier work in research, innovation, change management and consultancy. Richard has a horizon-scanning role across the BMT organisation, looking at medium to long term trends. This embraces emergent and disruptive technologies including autonomous systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital transformation, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). He has been extensively involved with Maritime UK, working in a number of their working groups and leading their futures programme. He sits on the UK Maritime Enterprise Working Group leading on shipbuilding skills related aspects. He has been active developing the MarRI-UK initiative for a number of years and chairs their working group.  Alongside SMMI he led on the development of a Zero Carbon Coastal Highway initiative, seeking UK Government funding for research and innovation in the Maritime Sector. Together with colleagues form SMMI and Lloyds Register, Richard co-authored the ‘Global Marine Technology Trends 2030’ series of reports working alongside students and researchers.  He sits on the Transport Executive Committee of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Innovation Committee of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects.  Richard is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects and a Fellow of the IET.  Outside of work his interests include hill walking, travel and playing the guitar.

In welcoming Richard into the SMMI, Director Professor Damon Teagle said, “Richard brings great experience, vision, and energy to the maritime futures arena.  He is an inspirational thought leader who exudes a true sense of excitement at the potential of new technologies and their application to improve efficiencies and safety.  This is a great opportunity for students and researchers at Southampton to benefit from his knowledge and vision and to help us develop transformative approaches for a better future.”