Professor Stephen McArthur

Personal statement

Stephen McArthur is Associate Principal and Executive Dean of Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. He also holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Intelligent Energy Systems. His main area of expertise is applying artificial intelligence in power and energy systems. He has delivered solutions for a range of smart grid, asset management and data analytic challenges. His research now concerns the customisation of artificial intelligence techniques combined with distributed intelligence architectures to provide decision support for energy and wider industrial applications. He leads the Industrial Informatics Cluster within the University.

Professor McArthur won the 2021 IEEE Richard Harold Kaufmann Award for outstanding contributions in industrial systems engineering, “for innovative contributions to the advancement of intelligent systems for power engineering applications”.

He is the Principal Investigator leading the UKRI EnergyREV programme. This brings together 22 universities and 32 investigators to deliver novel research and innovation that will accelerate the uptake, value and impact of Smart Local Energy Systems. EnergyREV is a key component of the UK Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s Prospering from the Energy Revolution (PFER) programme. PFER intends to prove investable, scalable local business models using integrated approaches to deliver cleaner, cheaper energy services.

In addition, he is the Director of the joint Strathclyde and Imperial College EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Power Networks and Smart Grids. This aims to train doctoral level engineers who can realise the future low carbon smart grid. Professor McArthur is also Academic Director of the Advanced Nuclear Research Centre at Strathclyde, which delivers academic and industry collaborative programmes focused on plant lifetime extension and improved operations in the nuclear industry. 

As co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Bellrock Technology, he has helped design and create the Lumen product. This supports the effective and rapid deployment of intelligent system and data analytic products and services, and is being used by customers across eight different industry sectors including energy, healthcare and rail transport.