Richard Auburn

richard auburn headshot2
Senior Licensing and Venture Manager

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard has a B.Sc.(Hon) Microbiology and Genetics from the University of Aberdeen and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Cambridge.

I am a Senior Licencing and Ventures Manager at Oxford University Innovation and my job is to help the university make sure its research and innovation can deliver impact, either through licensing intellectual property to an existing company or supporting the creation of companies. I also help secure grant funding to help pay for stuff to be taking from a prototype phase into more of a development phase. I typically work on around 100 projects at a time!

These projects were multinational collaborations that included developing and implementing genetic, molecular, automation and bioinformatics solutions. The commercial projects simultaneously involved obtaining key opinion leader input, establishing quality management systems, and supervising/supporting external partners.

Richard shared his experience of discovering he was dyslexic for World Dyslexia Day “Discovering I’m Dyslexic.”  What Dyslexia taught me About Project Management  

 

 

Richard talks about:

  • Time-planning & colour coding tasks, recognizing poor short term memory & developing an organisation system for 100 projects

  • Finding out he was dyslexic recently at 40 when his daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic. Hereditary - his father also appears to be dyslexic.

  • Irlens syndrome: Words moving on a page and motion sickness sometimes from reading. 

  • Letters B & D switching around. Using a font called opendyslexic where each character is uniquely shaped.  Using blue glasses.

  • Learning through making mind-maps, a pictorial representation,  which led richard to see connections between subjects 

  • Reading people and working out team dynamics and being able to manage frictions between different people

 

Please follow the link to the interview.

 

“(Getting diagnosed at 40) I then had a 6 month journey where I was trying to get to understand a lot more about myself, and it allowed me to go through a journey of understanding what happened to me as a child growing up, I am grateful for having gone through that experiences as I now know myself better more deeply than I would otherwise have done so and it's made me aware of the challenges I face that are probably specific to dyslexia rather than being generally true and that has prompted me to find solutions.”