Fiona Charnley

Fiona Charnley is Professor of Circular Innovation within the Business School at the University of Exeter. She is Co-Director of the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Hub, with the aim to harness and scale up the UK’s leading research capabilities, providing the evidence base, inspiration, and capacity to accelerate the transition towards a global circular economy.

Fiona leads multiple government and industry-funded research projects covering topics such as the use of digital technology to inform decisions surrounding the implementation of circular economy strategies and the development and application of self-healing materials to enable product life extension. Fiona has an extensive publication track record across the areas of design, manufacture, and business modelling for a Circular Economy. Additionally, she is editor of the ‘Handbook of the Circular Economy’ published by De Gruyter in 2023.

Fiona has extensive experience of working with organisations from across sectors to identify new approaches to design, innovation, manufacture, and business modelling to transform resource use and value creation. She has also led multiple education and executive training programmes to support future leaders in developing the skills and capabilities necessary to transform our industrial system.