Dr David Leal-Ayala

David helps governments and international organisations design industrial and innovation policies that turn research strength into industrial competitiveness and low-carbon growth.

A manufacturing engineer by training, he brings a mix of industry, research and entrepreneurial experience to his policy work. As Deputy Head of Policy, he designs and leads advisory and research projects for UK government departments, national and regional governments abroad, and international organisations such as the World Economic Forum and UNIDO.

Recent work

For the UK government, David has led a government-commissioned study on how UK institutions convert research and innovation into industrial capability (2026); assessed the performance of the UK’s industrial innovation system for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (2025); examined the rebound effects of industrial energy and resource efficiency for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, with Cambridge Econometrics and the University of Leeds (2026); evaluated the Made Smarter Adoption programme for the Department for Business and Trade (2024); and mapped manufacturing innovation support in Wales for Innovate UK and the Welsh Government (2025). He is a co-author of CIIP’s annual UK Innovation Report.

Internationally, he was a Research Fellow with the World Economic Forum’s Industry Net Zero Accelerator (2022–2025). There he was lead author of the Forum’s white papers on net zero manufacturing, Scope 3 emissions and public–private collaboration for industrial decarbonisation, and he spoke at the Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos in 2024 and 2025. He co-authored a UNIDO policy brief on AI and the future of industrial policy in developing countries, which is cited in UNIDO’s Industrial Development Report 2026. He has supported industrial strategies in Mexico (Tabasco and Yucatán), Chile, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, working with UNIDO, UNDP, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Teaching and speaking

David contributes to CIIP’s capacity-building programmes for civil servants in the UK and abroad. Since 2018 he has given an annual lecture on enterprise, globalisation and policy at the Institute for Manufacturing, where he also supervises master’s dissertations on topics including industrial net zero, green hydrogen policy and industrial digitalisation. He speaks regularly at international forums, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Hannover Messe and the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS).

Before CIIP

2013–2016: Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Reduse, a Cambridge start-up based on his PhD research that developed a laser “unprinter” to remove toner from office paper so it can be reused. The company raised around £1m and was acquired by REEP Technologies in 2017. The work earned David the “MIT Innovators Under 35” prize from MIT Technology Review (2015).

2012–2015: Research Associate, Use Less Group, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. He mapped global flows of critical materials, helped shape the strategic vision for the Energy Systems Catapult, and contributed to the industry chapter of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

2005–2007: Automation engineer and project manager at Nemak and Cemex in Mexico and across Europe.

Education

• PhD in Engineering, University of Cambridge
• MSc in Advanced Manufacturing Technology and Systems Management (Distinction), University of Manchester
• BSc in Mechatronics Engineering, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico

Expertise

Industrial and innovation policy · technology commercialisation and scale-up · industrial decarbonisation and net zero manufacturing · industrial digitalisation and AI · national and regional industrial strategies · capacity building for policymakers

Languages: Spanish (native), English