Christian R. Østergaard is Professor of Innovation and Regional Industrial Dynamics at the Department of Business and Management, Aalborg University, Denmark. He holds a M.Sc. (2001) in Industrial Economics and Ph.D. (2005) in Innovation, Knowledge and Economic Dynamics from Aalborg University.

He is head of the IKE (Innovation, Knowledge and Economic dynamics) research group (see ike.aau.dk)

He is member of DRUID Executive Committee as the head of DRUID Academy. (see druid.dk)

His current research activities focus on topics related to innovation and regional industrial dynamics, such as the link between employee diversity, regional diversity and innovation; university-industry interaction; interfirm collaboration on innovation; the evolution and resilience of industries and regional industrial clusters.

Currently, he participates in four large-scale research projects: RUNIN - a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Innovative TrainingNetwork; DIRECTLY - a project funded by Innovation Fund Denmark; ReDy - funded by the Obel Foundation and GONST - a project funded by Nordic Cooperation. He has participated in several externally funded European and Danish research projects.

His research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Research Policy, Regional Studies, Journal of Technology Transfer, Industry and Innovation, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics; Journal of Technology and Engineering Management; European Urban and Regional Studies. He has also published several book chapters in edited volumes.

He has been an expert reviewer for the National Science Foundation (NSF) US (2009), the Research Council of Norway (2011;2013;2016), the European Commission (2014), The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) (2014), and the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT)(2015).

He is reviewer for journals, such as Research Policy, Industry and Innovation, Regional Studies, European Urban and Regional Studies, European Planning Studies, Socio-Economic Review, Industrial and Corporate Change, Economic Geography, Journal of Economic Geography

He is a member of the Academic Council at Faculty of Social Sciences (elected) 2020-2024

He is a former member of the PhD. council at Doctoral School of Social Sciences (2011-15 and 2017-2020); former head of the PhD. program at the Department of Business and Management (2011-15 and 2017-2020) and former member of the Academic Council at Faculty of Social Sciences  (2008-2016) as well as former member of the Department Council for Department of Business and Management (2012-2016).