Barrie Dowdeswell

Barrie Dowdeswell trained as an economist and spent his early years with a major multi-national corporation prior to a 30-year career in the NHS. For a substantial part of that time, he was the Chief Executive Officer of one of the UK's major teaching hospitals. He was also a member of several national NHS policy advisory boards.

In the late nineties, he left the NHS to pursue wider interests in health policy development, including research into capital investment strategy in the health sector. He accepted an appointment as Research Fellow, University at the University of New South Wales, Sydney to undertake research studies in health care investment strategy that contributed to the then (2000) Australian Senate Review of the role of public private partnerships in the health sector. He was also formerly Executive Director of the European Health Property Network.

In 2008 he took on his current role, with a focus on developing more comprehensive and collaborative Europe-wide teaching and research in this field. He has directed a substantial portfolio of research studies.

He has been appointed by the European Commission, Directorate of Regional Development, (DG Regio) as 'expert adviser' to the EU on structural fund strategy for health at European, national and regional levels. He is also supporting the EU Council High Level Reflection Process on Health, providing advice on cohesion policy and translation of the Commission's strategic manifesto Europe 2020 for the health care sector.

He is a visiting lecturer at Semmelweis University, Budapest, MCI Innsbruck, Austria and Aalto University, Helsinki.

Barrie is a guest blogger for our Time to Think Differently programme.