Dr Werner van der MerweVice President (Innovation and Enterprise)

Before joining Swinburne, Dr van der Merwe was the Executive Manager, Commercialisation at CSIRO during a period when the organisation created one of the largest equity portfolios and one of the largest licensing portfolios in Australian research.

He also has previous experience in the tertiary sector as a Business Development Manager at UNSW and has had an extensive career at chemical and energy company Sasol across multiple countries in engineering, research and development, and commercialisation positions.

Dr van der Merwe is experienced in deeptech commercialisation, early engineering, IP strategy development, fostering research start-ups and new product development. He is passionate about translating research and technological breakthroughs into business value.