Prof. dr. Simcha Jong

Prof. dr. Simcha Jong

Simcha joined Leiden University in 2016 as Professor and Director of Science Based Business. He is responsible for developing new research, teaching, and outreach activities in management for the Faculty of Science. Simcha previously held faculty appointments at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (visiting) and at the UCL School of Management where he still is a Visiting Professor and where he was Faculty Chair of the UCL Healthcare Management Initiative.

Simcha currently leads an ERC Consolidator project on the organisation of international R&D consortia. His research also focuses on the themes of innovation for health and science commercialisation. Simcha has also been the recipient of funding from major UK funding bodies such as Innovate UK, ESRC, NESTA, NIHR, Wellcome Trust, and BIS, as well as various industry partners for projects in the field of healthcare innovation.

Simcha has a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, an MPhil in Management Studies from the University of Cambridge (first class honours with distinction level), and a BA in Social Science from Utrecht University’s University College (cum laude). In addition, he was a visiting scholar at the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley.

Simcha’s research has been published in leading international scientific and management journals, including Nature Biotechnology, Research Policy, Journal of Management Studies, Technovation, and Industrial and Corporate Change. Simcha was elected Honorary Cambridge University European Trust Scholar, was awarded the first prize in the PRIME Early Career Competition, a DIME WP European Framework Grant for qualitative research on university entrepreneurship, a Georgia Tech Science and Technology policy conference early career prize, and an Academy of Management OB Most Innovative Student paper award.

PhD and Postdoctoral researchers from Simcha’s group moved on to academic positions in management and science policy, at Columbia University, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Warwick Business School, Georgia Tech, National Taiwan University, SPRU, Middlesex University, and UCL.

Science Based Business

Science Based Business (SBB) spans science, medicine and business, focusing on areas such as technology management, innovation, entrepreneurship, operations and decision making.

SBB fuses business scholarship with technology and industry engagement. Our programs forge strong relationships to other groups within the Faculty of Science and LUMC, and center on major societal needs.

Research

SBB research focuses on the complex operational, organisational dynamics of technology-intensive sectors.

Research at SBB is organized within two research groups:

1. Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Innovation
2. Technology and Operations Management.
   

Within these two research groups, our faculty and students focus on the following broad fields:

• Strategy in technology-intensive markets
• Organisational dynamics of R&D
• Systems modeling and optimisation
• Decision and risk analysis
• Academic entrepreneurship
• Science and technology policy
• Innovation and health systems