Harrison completed his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Adelaide and his PhD in Advanced Manufacturing at UniSA, specialising in early-stage product innovation, design intelligence and cross-disciplinary engineering methodology. His doctoral research led to the creation of 3DPVS™, a scaffold for early-stage product exploration, and TQF — a structured design-intelligence framework for navigating complex engineering and innovation environments. Related system-design structures, such as GREPYRO, support the practical application of this line of work.
Across his career, Harrison has worked across academic research, industry environments and project governance. He has coordinated multi-institution, industry-aligned initiatives in advanced manufacturing, pharmaceutical innovation and forestry, supporting research translation, stakeholder coordination and the organisation of technical work into executable outcomes. Harrison is currently part of the Forestry Centre of Excellence — a collaborative initiative between the South Australian Government, industry and UniSA — which exemplifies the value of system-level collaboration between academia and commercial partners in regional and international innovation.
Harrison’s broader work focuses on the architecture of innovation systems: how research logic, project-management practice, engineering practice and industrial processes can be organised into coherent, actionable frameworks. His interests also include Australia–Asia-Pacific research and industry linkages, and the study of how innovation systems operate across different sectors.