Mark Majewsky Anderson is Director of Research and Innovation at Glasgow Caledonian University and has helped to embed social innovation as a core part of the University’s mission. As well as overseeing the University’s research and innovation portfolio, he leads several international cooperation projects around the world, in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, Central Asia. One of his main focal areas is setting up community-facing ‘Social Innovation Support Units’, specifically dedicated to helping universities engage with their local stakeholders in order to confront societal challenges. He has established 16 of these units in Latin America - Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Panama, (Latin American Social Innovation Network - http://www.lasin-eu.org/en ), and in Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand (Southeast Social Innovation Network - http://www.seasin-eu.org/ ). He also coordinates SIKE, Social Innovation through Knowledge Exchange (https://sike-eu.org/ ), establishing similar units in UK, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Germany. Other projects have focussed on areas such as research, innovation, internationalisation, disability support, female entrepreneurship etc. in a range of countries including Indonesia, Iran, India, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda etc.
As Director of the Europe Office, over the last ten years, he has guided the University through the complexities of European funding and has chaired and participated on several national panels focussing on the ramifications of the BREXIT process. He is also non-executive director of the Edinburgh social innovation incubator, the Melting Pot, and sits on the Social Innovation Exchange Global Council.
In his “second life” he is also an avid writer. He has written and directed over twenty plays and completed four as yet unpublished novels. He recently completed a Masters in TV Scriptwriting with a distinction. Previously, in Salamanca, Spain (where he lived for over 17 years), he wrote a weekly page for the local newspaper, D-Gratis, commenting on the latest news and events in English.
