Dr. J. Ren received his BSc (Mathematics) and MSc (Engineering & Management) degrees from Sichuan University and Harbin Institute of Technology in China in 1985 and 1991, respectively. He received his PhD from the University of Exeter in October 2003. Dr. Ren worked in Southwest-China Petroleum Institute as a Lecturer and then an Associate Professor in Management Information Systems during 1991 and 1998. He also worked as a visiting research fellow at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1998 and a research fellow at the University of Exeter from 2003 to 2004, respectively. He initially joined LJMU as a research fellow in September 2004 and has been a Senior Lecturer since 2007. Dr. Ren’s current research interests are in the areas of maritime and offshore risk/safety analysis, multi-criteria decision making, lean/agile manufacturing, and logistics/supply chain management.