Jane Penty is a practising designer and educator who worked at the University of Brighton for many years until 2010 alongside other posts including associate lecturer at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London.

After graduating from the Royal College of Art, London in Industrial Design Engineering (1984), Penty went on to work in London design consultancies, first as staff designer and later as a freelance designer. Consultancies include: McColls, PSD Associates, Allied International Designers, Roberts Weaver.

She became involved in design education in 1989 and her research while at the University of Brighton explored the formulation of a creative vision in response to contextual observations, narratives and scenarios; constant enquiry into new possibilities with materials and appropriate technologies from low-tech to hi-tech, including composites and smart/reactive materials and coatings; interactivity and responsiveness - the possibility that there is change in response to environment and viewer; lightness and flow; illumination: a concern with the dual nature of the object - self illuminated and externally illuminated; community involvement and multidisciplinary collaborations.

Influenced by the early environmentalist movement in the 70's and later travels in Africa, Penty drew on an interest in sustainability in its broadest sense, leading to the development of methodologies and tools in design practice and education based on the creation of new scenarios of consumption and production in the development of products and product service systems. This motivated the question: how can we communicate sustainable values through the products we design?

In 2005-2008 Jane Penty project managed the EU Interreg IIIa Avenue Verte Cyclestations Project: Leading the successful bid for EU ERDF Interreg IIIa programme grant funding (1.25m project / 536k grant).

The project managed the partnership between the University of Brighton, Commune d'Offranville and the Hailsham Trust to develop and build the first 'greenstop' cyclestations and a series of public exhibitions: Slow spaces exhibition. Design and curation. Town House, Hailsham, March 2006; Grange au Moulin, Offranville April 2006, CETL Space, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton, February 2007; Project bilingual. Website www.greenstops.org launched September 2006;Trigger overload? Complexity and Complication. A case study of an EU funded community/academic partnership: co-authored with Anthony Roberts and Glenn Longden Thurgood. Refereed paper for European League of Institutes for the Arts.

Between 2000-2001 Jane Penty also managed Collaborations á distance, an EU ERDF Interreg II grant funded project. Managed two year project in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce, Le Tréport. (110k/55k grant).