Former Head of EU Exit Negotiability at Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Policy Fellow Alum, Centre for Science and Policy

Aphrodite Korou was the former Head of EU Exit Negotiability at Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Prior to this she was the Head of Standardisation Policy in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Her role involved bringing overall coherence to the UK standardisation policy and infrastructure - whilst working with a wide range of stakeholders in the UK and internationally, and based on strong economic impact evidence - so that it supports innovation, facilitates fair competition, promotes European and international trade, and protects consumers, health, and sustainability.

Previous policy and legislation posts she held in Government, and in the European Commission, were in the policy areas of sustainable development, waste, sustainable consumption and production, gender equality, and integrated transport, all with a strong European and international dimension. Ms Korou also worked at ERM environmental management consultancy on research projects for national and international public and private bodies in environmental strategy, policy, regulation, science, R&D, and technology; and held posts at the European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign in Brussels, and at Soletanche engineering company in Paris.

Aphrodite holds an MSc and DIC in Environmental Technology from Imperial; a first class BSc (Hons) in French & European Studies (University of Surrey); and a Diploma on Higher French Studies (University of Sorbonne). She was awarded European scholarships (Socrates, DG ENV, and Erasmus) to undertake postgraduate (Lisbon) and undergraduate research (Barcelona, Louvain-La-Neuve). She is currently reading for a postgraduate Diploma in Systems Thinking in Practice at the OU.

Aphrodite’s policy and research interests lie in innovation and sustainability, systemic change and innovation, use of evidence-base in policy making, research and standardisation; socio-technical change, participatory technology development, European policy and decision-making, risk and regulation.