Chair of Trustees - Professor Ian Swain BSc (Hons) PhD CEng FIET CSci FIPEM
Professor Swain was Professor of Clinical Engineering at Bournemouth University working mainly in the Orthopaedic Research Institute. He read Electronic Engineering at Southampton and completed his PhD “Adaptive Control of an Arm Prosthesis” in 1982.
Ian was the first person employed in Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering in Salisbury where he established the National Clinical Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Centre which led to the creation of Odstock Medical (OML), the first NHS commercial company in England. He has 7 patents and has written 180 papers on biomedical engineering. His main research interests are the use of engineering to help people with long term disabilities, in particular FES. He was a Principal Investigator for project TETRAGRIP II, an INSPIRE funded project researching the restoration of hand function after tetraplegia.
He has been part of the INSPIRE Foundation since its first days in the late 1980s and became a Life Patron of INSPIRE in November 2019, a Trustee in October 2024 and Chair of Trustees on 22nd Nov 2024.