Programme

Gerard McElwee is Professor of Entrepreneurship at Nottingham Trent University. He is the founding editor of The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and has over 50 refereed publications. His research interests are in the areas of rural enterprise, farm entrepreneurship and illicit enterprise. He has taught and spoken at conferences and symposia in numerous countries. Gerard is from the North East of England.

Professor Nigel Curry is director of the Countryside and Community Research Institute, a joint institute of the universities of Gloucestershire and the West of England. He is an economist and spatial planner and his research interests cohere around the notion of equity. In this context, he is currently undertaking research in rural economic policy, the contribution of rural older people to civic society and rural health.

David Smallbone is Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Associate Director of the Small Business Research Centre at Kingston University. David is also Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China, and President of the International Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ICSB). He is a past President of the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ECSB).

Denis Byrne
Following a distinguished 35-year public service career in the Ministries of Industry and Commerce, Foreign Affairs and Agriculture of Ireland, Denis was appointed to the board of the Irish National Forestry Company (Coillte) in January 2010.

In January 2011, Denis was invited to be a Member of the four-person Brussels-based Agriculture Conciliation Body which conciliates between the E.U. Commission and the E.U. Member States in disputes relating to payments to the agriculture sector.
He has been a Council member of the Royal Dublin Society since 2008. He undertakes selected consultancy work and is a part time tutor in the Open University MBA programme specialising in public sector strategic management .

Denis holds a Masters in Management Science degree from Trinity College Dublin; an MSc. in Strategic Management from Boston University and an LLM. in international comparative law from the Brussels Vrij Universitat. He also holds a B.Comm. degree and a Diploma in Public Administration from University College Dublin.

Denis is currently a PhD student at Nottingham Trent University where his field of research under the guidance of Professor Joyce Liddle, relates to the development of social capital in the boards of directors of public sector companies.

Dr Stuart Burgess, CBE, chairs the Commission for Rural Communities having previously been Chairman of the Countryside Agency, and was the Government’s Rural Advocate from 2004-2010. He is a member of the ethics committee for the Department of Work and Pensions, co-Chair of the BMA Patient Liaison Group (2004-07), chair of the inter-faith group for the safer neighbourhoods scheme (Metropolitan Police) for the London boroughs, and member of the University Court of Nottingham.

He has been involved in rural and social regeneration in the East Riding and North Yorkshire and is co-author of a study booklet on the countryside entitled Presence. He has served as regional, national and international Church leader in the Methodist Church, including President of the Methodist Church of Great Britain in the millennium year.