Professor Stewart is Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC, https://www.apgc.org.uk/), a £30M Tay Cities deal regional development project hosted at the James Hutton Institute. For over 30 years Derek has worked at the industry-academia interface and has led multiple (inter)national multipartner projects that, to date, total ~£300M. As director of the APGC he oversees the novel research, development and innovation centred on the development of pre- and post-harvest innovation, including controlled environment agriculture, crop storage etc. More recent Prof Stewart has become a co-direct of the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre, a ~£19M investment by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and Innovate UK and matched £19M support by stakeholders including industry.