Professor Xiaolan Fu FAcSS

Xiaolan Fu is the Founding Director of the Technology and Management Centre for Development, Professor of Technology and International Development at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Director of Oxford Advanced Research Centre, and a Fellow of Green Templeton College. She is also Founder of OxValue.ai.

Her research interests include innovation, technology and industrialisation; trade, foreign direct investment and economic development; digital technologies; and AI-driven technology valuation. She is appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Governing Council of the Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries (2018-2022) and to the first Ten-Member High Level Advisory Group of the UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism (2015-2019); and recently to the United Nations High Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs (2025-).

She is a winner of the 2025 Most Achieved Chinese Award, 2025 Financial Times PWM Wealth Tech Award, 2021 Falling Walls Scientific Breakthrough Award, 2025 Oxford University Vice-Chancellor’s Award Highly Commended, 2018 EIBA IBR Best Paper Award, 2017 EURAM Best Paper Award, 2005 EFMD Best Paper Award, and other international awards.

She has published extensively in leading international journals. Her recent books include the Oxford Handbook of China Innovation (2022), Innovation Under the Radar: The Nature and Source of Innovation in Africa (2020), China’s Path to Innovation (2015), China’s Role in Global Economic Recovery (2011), and The Rise of Technological Power in the South (2010).

She has been Editor-in-Chief of Chinese Economic and Business Studies (2013-2020), Co-Editor of R&D Management (2020-2025), and Guest-Editor of special issues of leading international journals including World Development, Industry and Corporate Change, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, and British Accounting Review.