Professor Muthu De Silva

Overview

Biography

Muthu De Silva is a Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Head of Research, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, at the Faculty of Business and Law, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.

Her research contributes to our knowledge on co-creation, defined as how different actors of the ecosystem - such as businesses, universities, society and government - work together to simultaneously generate business, social and environmental value. She has published in world-leading (ABS 4*/3*) journals such as  Research Policy, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, British Journal of Management, Technovation, and R&D Management etc.

She has secured major grants from UKRI, ESRC, Innovate UK, Intellectual Property Office, EU and British Academy/Leverhulme, OECD, and British Academy of Management.

Her research simultaneously generates theoretically rigorous and practically impactful output.  She is a co-investigator of Innovation and Research Caucus, a £7 million investment by the UKRI, ESRC, and Innovate UK to establish a world leading centre of excellence in research and innovation funding.

She has been awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 2023. 

She is a fellow of Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. She is in the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Management (ABS 4*) and the Journal of Business Research (ABS 3*). 

Qualifications

Muthu holds a PhD in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Manchester Business School/Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester for which she received a bursary from the School’s Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She also gained a Distinction for her MBA at the Bradford University School of Management, in which she received the ‘Strategic Planning Society Prize’ for the best performance in Strategic Management. She graduated with a First Class honours degree (in Economics and Business Management) from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, receiving the gold medal for the most outstanding performance. She has successfully completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education.

Employment History

Prior to joining Birkbeck, she worked as a lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Kent Business School, University of Kent. She also held a joint position as the Leader of Entrepreneurial Co-creation at the Big Innovation Centre and a Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She has also worked as an Associate Academic Staff member at the Bradford University School of Management, a Teaching and Research Assistant at Manchester Business School and a Lecturer at the University of Peradeniya

Qualifications

• PhD, Manchester Business School/Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester
• MBA, Bradford University School of Management
• BSc, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Visiting posts

• Honorary Professor , Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) , 07-2023
• Honorary Research Fellow, Africa-Asia Centre for Sustainability Research, University of Aberdeen, 07-2022
• Honorary Fellow, InnoLab, University of Vaasa, Finland, 03-2022

Professional memberships

• Academy of Management

• British Academy of Management

• Higher Education Academy - Fellow
  

• Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce - Fellow
  

• Innovation Caucus

• Research Expert Advisor Board, Intellectual Property Office, UK - board member
  

• Economics and Business evaluation panel of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT), the Portuguese public funding agency for Research & Development, chaired by Professor Stephen Roper from Warwick Business School, UK - evaluation member 
  

• External Peer Review Group – Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (Since August 2023) and previously for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (March 2020- August 2023)

• EPSRC, Expert Grant Review Panel on NetZero commercialisation, knowledge exchange, policy engagement, and public engagement.

• British Academy Sustainability & Social Value Working Group (UK Economic Strategy) member, a programme of work exploring the critical foundational elements of a long-term, holistic and sustainable approach to UK economic strategy.

Honours and awards

• Tenth Most Cited Article in 2019 in Journal of Organizational Behaviour (ABS 4*), Journal of Organizational Behaviour, September 2019
• The Most cited articles published in Research Policy since 2018 (ABS 4*), Research Policy Journal, September 2020
• Top downloaded articles in 2018 - Research Policy (ABS 4*), Research Policy Journal , September 2019
• Most downloaded article in 2018/19 - R&D Management Journal (ABS 3), R&D Management Journal , September 2020
• Best Paper Award in Innovation at the British Academy of Management Conference- 2016, British Academy of Management , September 2016
• Best Paper Award in Innovation at the British Academy of Management Conference – 2015, British Academy of Management , September 2015
• Best Paper in “Innovation, Management, and Governance for Sustainable Growth” at the ACIEK 2021 Conference - 2021, Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference, September 2021
• Best Paper Award in Marketing, Strategy & Policy Conference 2021 , Marketing, Strategy & Policy Conference 2021 , September 2021

ORCID

0000-0003-4800-3684

Research

Research interests

• The concept of Entrepreneurial Co-creation
• University-industry co-creation
• Involvement of intermediaries in co-creation
• Co-creation by social enterprises
• Involvement of businesses and multinational organisations in co-creation
• Co-creation for green innovation

Research overview

Research Contribution 

Muthu's core contribution to our knowledge is in the area of co-creation between actors of an innovation ecosystem. She defines co-creation as “close working relationship between individuals associated with different organisations such as – universities, businesses, intermediaries, governments, and society – to simultaneously generate business and social value” (De Silva and Wright 2018).

She has published several ABS 4* and 3* papers in the area of co-creation, which have enabled her to further our knowledge on dynamic capabilities, opportunities, relational capabilities, knowledge management strategies and outcomes of co-creation in different contexts

Funded Projects

2023/26: UKRI, ESRC and Innovate UK: Co-investigator: Establish Innovation and Research Caucus as a world leading centre of excellence in research and innovation funding

2023: ESRC Grant: Return on Investment of Social Science Research 

2021/24: Consultant, the Working Party on Innovation and Technology Policy (TIP), OECD 

2021/22: Principal Investigator – BEI School Research Grant 

2021/22: Principal Investigator - Research Award by the University of Pécs

2019/22: Principal Investigator – BEI School Impact Grant 

2018/19: Principal Investigator - BEI School Research Grant

2018/19: Principal Investigator - British Academy of Management Small Grant

2018/19: Co-investigator - British Academy of Management - Transition Grant

2017/18: Principal Investigator - Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty Research Fund, Kent Business School, University of Kent

2017/18: Co-investigator – Eastern Arc: Quantitative Social Science Workshop/Research Fund

2015/2016: Co-investigator - British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant

2014/2015: Principal Investigator - Innovate UK Research Grant

2012/2013: Principal Investigator – as a sub contractor to an EU project

2008/2012: PhD Bursary – from the Manchester Business School

2007: Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship

Research Centres and Institutes

• Member, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

4

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest. My core interest is in co-creation. Please check Research Overview section for my research interests in detail. 

Current PhD Students: 

• Doyin Olorunfemi
• David Roberts
• Muhammad Usman Naeem
• Filipe Martins Gomes
• Maximilian Giehrl

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

• USMAN NAEEM

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2020

  Awarded:

  2024

• 'DOYIN OLORUNFEMI

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2019

  Title of thesis:

  Entrepreneurial learning and development of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in women engaged in interconnected selling: Impact on future venturing

  Awarded:

  2023

• DAVID ROBERTS

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2020

  Awarded:

  2022

Teaching

Muthu's main teaching contribution to Birkbeck is to enhance Entrepreneurship Education. She has designed and convened 60 credits of the 75 credits of Entrepreneurship modules offered by Birkbeck.

The recently awarded Small Business Charter accreditation based on the School’s contribution to the Entrepreneurship Education and Research is a real testimony to the years of effort that she has made to enhance "Entrepreneurship Education and Research" at Birkbeck:

The assessor’s comment in the awarding letter:

"The value Birkbeck adds to their student business owners and the impact on their businesses is an order of magnitude higher than the assessors have seen elsewhere. Furthermore, the stature, relevance, and impact of Birkbeck’s research for policy makers is exemplary"

She has been awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 2023

The modules that she has designed and convened:

·       Entrepreneurial Venture Creation (Postgraduate) (15 credits) – This module is designed to provide students with knowledge and skills to establish a new venture or to introduce innovation (e.g. new product/ service/ process/ business / project development) within an established organization.  

·       Entrepreneurship and Small Business (Undergraduate) (15 credits) - This module helps students to understand how to become entrepreneurial in a wide array of settings (e.g. start-ups, corporates, universities, intermediaries, communities and government)

·       Entrepreneurship Project (Final year undergraduate students – alternative to dissertation) (30 credits) – This module offers guidance for undergraduate students (BSc Business Programme) to conduct a final year project to develop a business plan to establish a new business or to introduce innovation in an existing business.

She also convenes the following module, that is indirectly related to Entrepreneurship.

·       Managing Digital Transformation (Undergraduate students) (15 credits) – The module is designed to provide students with an overview of the fundamentals of digital transformation and its impact on private and public organisations.

 

The innovative teaching techniques were adopted – including coaching, live case study sessions with entrepreneurs, opportunities to work with entrepreneurs to address real-life challenges, panel discussions with practitioners, guest speeches from industry representative, video case studies and problem based and flipped learning approaches – enabling students to learn and experience not only theory but also their practical applications, are incorporated.

 

Publications