Dr Thomas Barlow 
For a decade, Thomas Barlow has been the leading independent advisor to Australian universities on research strategy. He is the publisher of the Barlow Report, a biennial resource that is widely subscribed to within the Australian higher education system.
He has served as an advisor on knowledge investment and research policy for a range of technology-intensive companies and government agencies at both state and federal levels. Between 2002 and 2004, he was the senior science advisor to the Minister for Education, Science and Training in the Australian Government.
Educated at Oxford University (MA, DPhil) and at the University of Sydney (BSc, Hons I with University Medal) he has been the Janssen Fellow in Biomedical Science at Balliol College, Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. He has also worked as a weekly columnist for the Financial Times newspaper in London.
Independent and widely recognised as an innovative thinker, Dr Barlow is highly regarded within the Australian research community for his imagination, optimism and vision.