Dr Katharina De Vita is the Faculty Head of Student Outcomes for the Faculty of Business and Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is also a Reader in Innovation in the Department of Strategy, Enterprise & Sustainability. Katharina is member of the Board of The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) Special Interest Group for Teaching and Coaching. Throughout Katharina’s career, she attracted funding from national and international sources for teaching, discipline-based research and consulting. Before joining Manchester Metropolitan University, Katharina held positions at the University of Greenwich for three and a half years and at the University of Cambridge for seven years. Previously, she was academic lead of an Innovate UK project and an international project associated with a research grant from NEMODE, an initiative under the Research Councils UK’s Digital Economy research programme. Katharina served as panel member for Innovate UK assessing bids worth £30m in 2020. Recently, Katharina was guest editor for a R&D Management special issue and currently serves as guest editor for Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education. 

Katharina leads the “Penang Living Lab for Advancing the Creative Economy (PLLACE) project,” an international research project awarded £300,000 in funding by The British Academy under its “ODA International Interdisciplinary Research Projects” scheme. She is leading the management, governance and impact acceleration of the project, as well as the establishment of the Penang Living Lab. The physical infrastructure of the Living Lab will serve as a dynamic catalyst, fostering collaboration, innovation, and skill enhancement within the creative industry. In this physical space, a diverse array of stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, creative workers, businesses, policymakers, NGOs, and citizens, will come together to actively engage in co-creation, testing, and validation of innovative solutions relevant to the creative sector. The Living Lab will operates on a co-creative model that provides real-time feedback to entrepreneurs, enabling them to make informed decisions and immediate adjustments. This dynamic innovation ecosystem will not only benefit individual enterprises but it will also support the overall competitiveness and growth of Penang’s creative sector and the broader Malaysian creative industry. [email protected]