Director of Sustainable Futures

Professor Mike Shaver

Mike Shaver

As Director of Sustainable Futures, Mike oversees our plaform’s strategy, vision and activities, working with our interdisciplinary research leaders, institutes and communities, and Challenge Leads, to integrate the exceptional range of environmental sustainability expertise at the University of Manchester. He works to facilitate highly interdisciplinary research and impact, strengthening connections between our research institutes and centres which are addressing complementary aspects of environmental challenges and sustainable solutions. He works to help identify new research agendas as well as deliver on current ones, extend the scope of our environmental expertise and impact of Sustainable Futures, and deliver solutions into practice rapidly through unique capabilities. 

Mike joined The University of Manchester in 2019 as Professor of Polymer Science in the Department of Materials. He is now Director of the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub and leads a diverse, interdisciplinary research team in developing sustainable systems for plastics and composites. His research is necessarily interdisciplinary, working with stakeholders in industry and policy and academics in polymer science, life cycle assessment, social sciences and economics to deliver change. Originally a chemist, he obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia in his native Canada in 2005 before moving to Imperial College as an NSERC Post-doctoral Fellow. He has been recognised with the MacroGroup Young Polymer Scientist award (2015), Young Academy of Scotland (2014-2018) and two Canada Foundation for Innovation Leadership Awards (2010, 2012) as well as Fellowships in both the Royal Society of Chemistry (2016) and Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining (2019).