Career
Clift was born 19 November 1942 and studied Chemical Engineering at
Trinity College, Cambridge, achieving first class honours in 1964. He received a PhD from
McGill University in 1970 for work on particle-fluid interactions, and this was his main research area (at McGill and
Cambridge then
Surrey University) in subsequent years. He became Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Surrey in 1981. His growing interest in the application of engineering principles to environmental issues led him in 1992 to establish the Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES) at the University of Surrey, a multidisciplinary group of engineers, scientists and social scientists. In this Centre he was an advocate of
Clean Technology,
Life Cycle Assessment and
Sustainable Development. He is presently professor emeritus at the CES. He has made a number of criticisms of government policy with respect to energy and the environment. He moved to
British Columbia in 2018. He is an adjunct professor at the
University of British Columbia and the
University of Victoria. ==Positions==
Selected publications
• Clift, R., Grace, J. R., and Weber, M. E., (1978) Bubbles, Drops and Particles Academic Press • Davidson, J. F., Clift, R., and Harrison, D., (eds) (1985) Fluidization, 2nd ed Academic Press • Clift, R., and Seville, J. P. K., (eds)(1993) Gas Cleaning at High Temperatures Blackie • Clift, R. (1993) Journal of Cleaner Production, 1, 3–4, pp 155–159 "Life Cycle Assessment and Ecolabelling" • Clift, R., & Wright, L., (2000) Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 65, 3, pp 281–295 "Relationships Between Environmental Impacts and Added Value Along the Supply Chain" • Azapagic, A., Perdan, S., and Clift, R., (eds) (2004) Sustainable Development in Practice – case studies for engineers and scientists, John Wiley & Sons • Wilson, K.C., Addie, G. R., Sellgren, A. and Clift, R. (2006) Slurry Transport Using Centrifugal Pumps (3rd ed.). Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. New York. • Clift, R. (2006) Energy, 32, pp. 262–268 "Climate Change and Energy Policy: The Importance of Sustainability Arguments" • Clift, R. (2006) Chemical Engineering Science, 61, pp 4179–4187 "Sustainable development and its implications for chemical engineering" • Clift, R. and Mulugetta, Y. (2007) The Chemical Engineer, October, pp. 24–26 "A Plea for Common Sense (and Biomass)" ==References==