Ehsan Khavandkar

Dr. Ehsan Khavandkar is an Associate Professor of Technology Innovation at UCL School of Management, University College London (UCL). He brings about a decade of pedagogical leadership experience across five UK business schools, with a track record of curriculum innovation, portfolio leadership, and sector engagement. He has previously held academic appointments at the University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, the University of Hull, and Aston University.
With an interdisciplinary background spanning innovation policy, economics, and industrial engineering, Dr Khavandkar’s research explores the co-evolution of regional innovation systems and entrepreneurial ecosystems within an increasingly globalised economy. He focuses on how co-creation processes drive place-based innovation and regional resilience, particularly amidst the rise of digital transformation and algorithmic discovery.
His current work addresses the 'capability paradox' in SMEs, investigating how Foundational Models and Agentic AI can be strategically integrated to bridge the digital divide in resource-constrained firms. He is specifically interested in how platform-based innovation and AI-mediated co-creation enable small firms to navigate geoeconomic fragmentation. By exploring the intersection of digital maturity and distributed innovation, his research identifies how SMEs can leverage these technologies to foster collaborative value creation, overcome institutional voids, and accelerate their international scaling and export resilience.
Focusing on higher education policy, Dr. Khavandkar’s pedagogical research examines the integration of Transnational Education (TNE) with Internationalised Curricula (IoC), exploring how co-productive pedagogies can be institutionalised through Authentic Business Learning to shift business education towards industry-engaged experimentation within a students-as-partners model. Positioning the institution as a `Business School of the Future`, his work investigates the scalable design of future-oriented curricula grounded in transprofessionalism, the Twin Transition, and place-based economic development, underpinning innovative learning architectures that foster epistemic fluency and enable learners to navigate the intersections of academic theory, sustainability, and professional practice. Central to this agenda is the use of adaptive and agentic AI frameworks to advance an equitable digital pedagogy that democratises access to high-stakes knowledge exchange, alongside the deployment of synthetic business environments and autonomous scenario modelling to reflect complex cross-border challenges, ensuring that inclusive and culturally responsive curriculum design remains integral to global business education.
Prior to his academic career, he spent almost a decade as an industrial consultant and project manager. This extensive professional background, complemented by his experience mentoring start-ups, underpins his industry-aligned teaching and knowledge-exchange activities. His excellence in these areas has been recognised through the Astonishing Academic Award (2017) and consecutive Knowledge Exchange Prizes (2021 and 2022). His research and impact initiatives have attracted funding from organisations including Advance HE and the Ferens Trust.