Dr Juliette Wilson, Department of Marketing, has been appointed as an expert adviser to the Scottish Government's Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee to help its scrutiny of the Scottish Government budget, with a specific focus on providing support to the food and drink sector.
The Food and Drink sector is one of the Scottish Government's seven growth sectors where Scotland is considered to have a comparative advantage or the potential to maximise future growth opportunities. Scottish Enterprise and HIE have both identified the sector as a priority in their business plans.
Professor Tom Baum, head of the Human Resource Management (HRM) department, obtained Newton Fund support to organise a workshop for Early Career Researchers, PhD students, public policy researchers and a number of experienced academics from Kenya, South Africa and the UK on the theme of Sustainable HRM in African Tourism.
Professor Baum worked with colleagues from Moi University, Kenya and the University of Johannesburg to bring together 30 participants for an intensive week from September 24-30, during which they shared current research and explored future collaboration in this neglected area of study. The event was hosted by the University of Johannesburg and included an inspiring visit to Soweto.
Strathclyde Business School Executive Dean, Professor David Hillier, together with Helyn Gould, Professor Eleanor Shaw, Professor Ian Wooton and Melissa McCrindle, Head of Marketing and Recruitment, welcomed 28 new students to the launch of the International Masters in Project Management with Italian partner Politecnico di Milano (MiP) on September 26, and also attended a series of meetings with MiP academic and recruitment counterparts.
A paper by Management Science academics has become one of the most read in Human Relations; it has been downloaded 2,313 times since December 1, 2016. According to Pure, the paper also has the highest Altmeric score of all the papers published by Strathclyde authors since the beginning of 2016. It is also "in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric" (https://sage.altmetric.com/details/10865140#score).
The paper, by Igor Pyrko, Viktor Dörfler, and Colin Eden, (2017), is entitled, "Thinking Together: What Makes Communities of Practice Work?", Human Relations, 70(4): 389-409. DOI: 10.1177/0018726716661040. You can find the paper here.
Dr Beverly Wagner and Dr Nusa Fain (Marketing) in collaboration with Offsite Solutions Scotland have been awarded a grant for a six-month project aiming to explore the market for offsite timber construction in the UK. The grant was awarded by Construction Scotland Innovation Centre and supported by Scottish Enterprise.
The Centre for Financial Regulation and Innovation has received a £25k Scottish Government grant to pursue the Scottish Irish Initiative. As part of the award, Daniel Broby, Department of Accounting and Finance, will be hosting two conferences – one in Dublin and one at Strathclyde Business School, and producing both a policy paper and an academic paper.
Grant Allan (Fraser of Allander Institute and Economics Department) attended the launch of a new book to which he, along with professors Peter McGregor and Kim Swales, contributed a chapter on "Energy and Climate Change: Challenges and Policies". The book, titled "The Scottish Economy: A living book", is part of the Regional Studies Association series on Regions and Cities and was edited by Kenneth Gibb, Duncan Maclennan, Des McNulty and Michael Comerford.
Dr Matthew Revie and Professor Tim Bedford (Management Science) were awarded funding for a 30 month Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Datalytics - an SME focusing on developing analytical tools for big data problems.
The KTP will focus on developing energy applications for Smart Cities to evaluate their carbon neutrality and their developing energy network and generation portfolio. The project grows on an existing Data Lab Innovation Centre project with Datalytics.
The Risk Consortium, hosted by Dr Matthew Revie, Dr Euan Barlow, Professor Lesley Walls, Professor Tim Bedford and Professor John Quigley (Management Science), held their 23rd workshop on September 26 with industry participants from Scottish Water, Scottish Power, dstl and Doosan Babcock, amongst others.
Academics from Management Science presented on innovative risk models while PhD and MSc students illustrated the diversity of risk research going on in Strathclyde Business School.
Gillian Anderson, research associate, and Dr Robert van der Meer, both Management Science, have been invited to present at an event in Cardiff on November 22 on 'Building Discrete Event Simulation Modelling Capacity in NHS Scotland'. They have been working with the Scottish Government and the NHS since 2014 on a variety of projects.
However in the last year, through CPD courses, they have trained 60 delegates serving various roles including clinician, manager and analyst, on the use of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) in a health context. In addition to the training they provide ongoing support to these delegates in a number of ways. The NHS Wales Delivery Unit are also working to develop DES capacity and this event will allow Gillian and Robert to share their experiences and learning.
Dr Dominic Chalmers, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, has been invited to contribute evidence to the Scottish Government Expert Advisory Panel for the Collaborative Economy Participation: Consumers, Providers, Business & Digital Skills.
He will present to the panel, headed by Helen Goulden of Nesta, in Edinburgh on October 26. The evidence to be presented is drawn from various collaborative economy research projects underway within the Hunter Centre in collaboration with Professor Sarah Dodd and Dr Russell Matthews.
Dr Euan Barlow, Dr Matthew Revie and Professor Lesley Walls (Management Science) have been awarded a grant for a project to develop prediction models for water quality failures. The project is funded by Scottish Water and the Data Lab Innovation Centre. It will explore new applications of decision support in this area, and will further develop relations between Scottish Water and the Management Science Department.
Professor Eleanor Shaw, Head of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, and John Anderson, Head of SME Engagement, launched the third cohort of the Growth Advantage Programme (GAP) which kicked off on September 29 with 15 new recruits.
The core GAP team John Anderson, Professor Eleanor Shaw, Professor Jonathan Levie, Dominic Chalmers and Colin Andrews were all involved in the first weekend session.
Professor Ian Wooton (Economics) was an organiser of the annual conference of the European Trade Study Group (ETSG), held in Florence on September 14-16 2017 and hosted by the University of Florence and the European University Institute.
This is the 19th conference of ETSG which Professor Wooton founded with Joe Francois (University of Bern) in 1999 as a forum for academic discussion and research on international trade.
Participation in ETSG activities is open to all academic and research economists. The conference has grown to be the largest (and friendliest) conference on international trade in the world, attracting over 350 participants with presentations of over 300 papers over two and a half days.
Once again this year, ETSG was chosen by the World Trade Organisation to be the venue for its Essay Award for Young Economists. Preparations are already underway for the 20th conference to be hosted by Warsaw School of Economics in September 2018. www.etsg.org
Professor Paul Stewart, Department of Human Resource Management, was the Rapporteur for the meeting, "Legacy of the Conflict" on September 28. This brought together eight former Irish Republican combatants and ten ministers from the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland, including the Very Reverend Norman Hamilton OBE, and Tommy McKearney, joint organisers of the event.
It was held at Benburb Priory in County Armagh and organised under the auspices of the Fund for Ireland (sponsored by the Irish Government). Chatman House Rules apply but a public report for consultation will be published in early 2018.
Dr Viktor Dörfler of the Management Science department delivered a talk titled 'SmArt Strategising for the Knowledge Era' at the event 'Harness Your Employees' Knowledge and Intuition' organised by KnowledgeBrief on September 13 in London.
Dr Dorfler delivered his talk twice to the practitioner audience; in the morning the audience predominantly represented business corporations, in the afternoon predominantly third sector organisations.
In relation to this talk he was featured in a KnowledgeBrief Hot Topic and an 'Expert Viewpoint' interview with him was published on the KnowledgeBrief Blog.
Dr Dorfler has also been named Best Reviewer by the Research Methodology Special Interest Group at BAM 2017.
Dr Aylin Ates (Department of Strategy & Organisation) attended a management team development workshop upon invitation by the Fishers Services Ltd at the City of Glasgow College, Riverside Campus on September 5.
Fishers is a laundry and textiles rental service in Scotland and the NE of England.
Dr Aylin Ates and Dr Steve Paton facilitated a 'Visual Strategy' workshop for the senior management team at Fishers Services Ltd on October 13. The workshop helped the company to develop a shared understanding of the business goals. The Managing Director, Michael Jones said, "I very much enjoyed the strategy session. It was a great opportunity to stand back and consider the wider context and to engage in open discussion."
Dr Beverly Wagner and Dr Nusa Fain of the Department of Marketing facilitated a 59-Minute Design Challenge for Scottish Power Energy Networks and their Framework Supplier organisations, looking into better ways of collaborating to support innovation. The workshop was held at SPEN’s Dealain House in Cumbernauld and attracted participants from a vide area of expertise, including Vodafone and Balfour Beatty.
Two key aims of the workshop included familiarisation with the design sprint methodology and networking opportunities. SPEN has committed to look into prioritised challenges within their Open Innovation Initiative and will be looking into platforms to support creation of better partnerships and working relationships with their Framework Suppliers. Dr Wagner and Dr Fain, who are certified in delivering Design sprints, will be hosting similar events across the country in the near future.
September saw the Centre for Corporate Connections launch two new postgraduate programmes in partnership with the Weir Group who began the ninth cohort of their Weir Business Management Programme and the second intake of the Weir MBA.
Weir has worked in close partnership with SBS to develop a bespoke executive programme which allows them to support the development of their potential leaders who will continue to drive the growth of the Weir Group in the future. Participants can progress upon completion of the Postgraduate Certificate in Business Management Programme through onto the Masters in Business Administration.
Since the launch of the Weir partnership in 2011, over 200 managers have achieved a postgraduate award from the Business School and the first cohort of Weir MBA students graduated in 2016.