Professor Jay Mitra is the Founding Professor of Business Enterprise and Innovation, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at the University of Essex, and Head of the School of Entrepreneurship and Business, at the University of Essex, Southend, UK. He is also the Director of the Scientific Committee on Entrepreneurship for the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and its LEED (Local Economic and Employment) Programme, in Paris, France, and in Trento, Italy. Professor Mitra has held Visiting Professorships and Fellowships at the Universities of Bologna, Italy, Bari, Italy, and Kuopio, Finland, and in China. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the School of Management at Fudan University in China.

Educated in India and in the UK, Professor Mitra has written and published widely on entrepreneurship, innovation, small firm growth and internationalisation, technology and knowledge transfer between universities and small firms for international refereed journals, international conferences and seminars. Professor Mitra has over 20 years of experience relating to entrepreneurship in large and small firms, small businesses and local economic development, gained while working for a firm of consultants and accountants, in local government, as head of an innovation centre, as an academic, and through two new business ventures of his own in London.

Professor Mitra has taught and lectured in numerous countries in Europe, Asia, the USA, Latin America, at seminars, workshops and conferences for corporate executives, owner managers of small firms, entrepreneurs, policy makers and educators. He has worked with UNIDO, the OECD, the European Commission, and a range of universities in various countries. His particular interests are in the areas of innovation management, creativity, new venture creation, entrepreneurship and economic regeneration. Professor Mitra is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK.