Speakers

George Freeman MP is Deputy Chair of the UK Parliament’s Science & Technology Select Committee and a former technology venture capitalist, with over a decade shaping the UK’s science, defence-adjacent and industrial innovation agenda from government.

Across senior ministerial roles under four Prime Ministers, he led national programmes spanning space, quantum, engineered biology, life sciences and advanced manufacturing, and was a driving force behind the UK’s shift towards active industrial strategy, sovereign capability and faster procurement for innovation. He represented the UK at G7 and G20 Science Summits, renegotiated UK participation in Horizon Europe, and brokered international science and technology partnerships with allies including Japan, Canada, Israel and Switzerland.

A consistent advocate for dual-use innovation, George has pushed for regulatory and procurement reform to help frontier technologies scale from defence into commercial markets, arguing that strategic capability, economic growth and national resilience must now be built together.