INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL

Professor Richard Li-Hua, PhD, Founder and President of ELITE Innovation College Cambridge (EICC), UK, and Honorary President of SIAS University, Zhengzhou, China, is General Convener of UNAI-CAMOT annual International Conference and Global University President Forum since 2008 and Global Innovation Webinar series monthly since 2020. A renowned strategy and innovation expert, an advocate of technology enhanced learning and lifelong learning, Richard was a Visiting Scholar at Judge Business School, Cambridge University, UK and is the Strategic Advisor at Research Centre of Technology Innovation, Tsinghua University, P.R.China. He severed as the Professor of Strategic Management and Leadership in Sunderland University and Plymouth University, UK. He was Visiting Professor of Strategic Management & Leadership in a number of prestigious Higher Education Institutions and well-known Business Schools including the Black School of Business, Erie, Penn State University, USA, Odette School of Business, Windsor University, Canada, Business School, Sun Yat-sen University, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai campus, China and Henley Business School, Reading University, UK.

Richard is a transformational leader with resilience who serviced as President of SIAS University, Sino-American university in China and also as President of New Beacon Campus, a large and comprehensive campus in the UK between 2014-2020. He has a passion and strong commitment for the global higher education (GHE) with well-established global leadership experiences in both public and private education sector in the UK, US, Canada and China.

His Global Vision with West Meets East Paradigm has allowed him to develop a creed for the universities where he worked in the global higher education. He has been instrumental in transforming such a firm creed into reality with passionate and relentless insistence and perseverance on (1) West Meets East-the integration and development of West-East management practice, theories, and philosophies and (2) the integration of world class research with teaching and learning in GHE and (3) the narrowing the gap between what are delivered in universities and what are needed in society in liberal arts education.

Richard is the Founder of the Agora ELITE Education Model. His idea in creating this innovative education model originated from 2016 when he was President and Vice Chancellor of Sias University in China. He presented a keynote entitled as ELITE O2O Initiative in Creating an Innovative and Entrepreneurial University in the Global Higher Education in MoE Conference, Wenzhou, China, 2016. His concept grew gradually and developed further and became more mature with the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.

At the invitation of China Association of Higher Education (CAHE), it was a great honour for him to deliver his keynote speech as a signal of the formal start of the journey in creating this innovative university with Agora ELITE Education Model at CAHE Annual International Conference, 22nd November, 2020 - Perspective of ELITE O2O Innovation University: A Great Revolution in the Global Higher Education in Post COVID-19 Era.  

Richard is also the Founder of the Theory of China Embracing Innovation. It has been established from a historical and philosophical angle and a strategic management perspective, based upon his 30 years of research on China’s technology and innovation strategy, competitiveness and sustainability, which resolves the paradox of China's economy with sustained, high-speed and stable development, analyzing the root of China's social, political, economic and environmental development, explaining the path of China's peaceful rise and the model of innovation. He has published the book China Embracing Innovation Leads to the Future and over 30 academic papers on China Embracing Innovation theory in Tsinghua Management Review and Outlook China.

He has previously published over 100 academic papers on international technology transfer and innovation in leading international journals and conference proceedings and 6 books in English and 3 books in Chinese. Also he had the honour to launched and managed 6 international journals with Emerald Insights between 2006-2016.