Dr Nick Rousseau
Consultant at Unconventional Connections LTD
Founder and Managing Director at Woven Network C.I.C.
Nick has worked consistently over many years to support more sustainable food solutions – in 2009 he founded a local food growing cooperative and ran it for 5 years before working in the Sheffield Junk Food Project.
In 2015 Nick founded the Woven Network CIC – UK’s (international) network focused on supporting entrepreneurs and researchers working on the opportunities around insects for food and feed.
As a result of his work with Woven, Nick has built an extensive international network of people involved in insect farming and gained a broad understanding of the many issues facing the sector and the opportunities that insect farming offers. He has been asked to speak about the potential of insect protein in the Houses of Parliament, at a policy think-tank event on the future of food and at academic and business conferences.
Within the global FeedX challenge he assessed the many different submissions from insect farming companies.
Nick leads Unconventional Connections, assisting local and national Government and associated bodies, businesses and universities to set up successful projects and initiatives. Nick is a very experienced strategic consultant with considerable experience of leading international projects and collaborations. He has worked across a wide range of domains bringing in experiences and insights from many areas to his work.
His consultancy work has a strong focus on helping international food production to be more sustainable and he has developed a broad network of contacts and experts to support this, with a particular focus on China and India. In addition, projects the team at Unconventional Connections delivered include:
- For the UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network – reviewing opportunities for them to win more business from Government and advising on a business expansion strategy
- For the Department for International Development – mapping UK energy technology company strengths to developing country needs and developing proposals for programmes that could harness that for real impact in the developing world
Nick currently works part time for Loughborough University as International Liaison Manager within the UKAid funded Modern Energy Cooking Services programme where he leads on business engagement.
Previously to his consultancy work, Nick had over 20 years of experience of working in UK Government often with foreign Governments and businesses. He was Head of International Innovation Strategy for 5 years at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Nick worked with many across the UK and international innovation landscape to develop ways to support innovation in practice.
Nick holds BA, MSc and PhD degrees in psychology from the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and Loughborough with a focus on psychology and user centred system development.