Professor Salim T S Al-Hassani is Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering (UMIST) and currently a Professorial Fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary fellowship of the British Science Association.

Since 1968, Professor Al-Hassani, has published over 200 papers in international journals and books. He has supervised 40 PhD, 50 MSc students and numerous post-doctoral Fellows from all parts of the world. 

He is actively involved in philanthropy and has spent over fifteen years championing education and cross cultural dialogue. His personal passion is the study of the contributions made by early Civilisation in helping to create the foundations of modern science and technology. Professor Al-Hassani is a world-renowned and powerful public speaker on this subject. 

A short video in which Prof. Al-Hassani speaks on the 1001 Inventions can be viewed online at: www.1001inventions.com/1001inventions

In 1999, Professor Al-Hassani founded and continues to be the Chairman of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation (FSTC); a not-for-profit educational foundation which aims to generate social cohesion, inter-cultural appreciation, and to promote science and learning as an alternative to negative and extremist behaviour. It does this by illuminating the shared scientific heritage of humanity with its initial efforts centring on uncovering the very significant scientific contributions by the Muslim Civilisation and is supported by a large global network of historians of science. 

FSTC’s initiatives include 1001 Inventions which has become a global success story attracting one million to its travelling exhibition which has toured London, Istanbul, New York and Los Angeles and its Library of Secrets film starring Sir Ben Kingsley has received 21 international awards and has been downloaded 12 million times; Curriculum Enrichment for the Common Era (CE4CE) was established in 2009 to further develop work with education in schools, prisons and communities around the world and receives 200 monthly users of its online teaching materials; the Muslim Heritage Awareness Group is expanding globally with networks in the UK, Turkey and the USA. The Arabick Roots exhibition opened in June at the Royal Society is proving to be yet another great success story.

Over the past decade, Prof. Al-Hassani’s work has received support and praise from world leaders and global diplomats like the President and Prime Minister of Turkey, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Amir of Qatar, the President of Finland, Prime Ministers and Ministers from the United Kingdom and ministers from  the United States.