One of Strathclyde’s current full time MBA students Niharika Gautam has been appointed as G100 Regional Chair for the Circular Economy, Scotland, UK.
G100 is a club of top 100 women leaders in the world, led by the Women Economic Forum. The G100 comprises of Nobel Laureates, former Heads of State, corporate, business and community leaders across diverse sectors across the globe.
The mandate of G100 is to provide thought leadership on what needs to be done for inclusivity, economic and social empowerment of women globally, and supported by men champions. G100 UK Circular Economy Wing is contributing to United Nations SDGs and closing gender gaps in the UK Circular Economy sector.
The Help to Grow: Management programme has been a great success since its launch in September 2021. The programme is led by John Anderson and Karin Finegan and run by Strathclyde Executive Education and Development (SEED), in collaboration with colleagues from the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship.
It aims to support senior leaders of SMEs in boosting their business performance, resilience, and long-term growth. The programme takes place face-to-face at Strathclyde Business School over twelve weeks, with particular focus on key areas related to business development, including strategy and innovation, digital adoption, marketing, employee engagement, operational excellence, and financial management.
Year one of the programme has now been completed at Strathclyde, which involved six different cohorts. These cohorts represent over 120 businesses from a variety of sectors who have entrusted SEED and Strathclyde Business School with their growth plans. Feedback on the programme has been excellent, and as a direct result of having completed it, many participants have secured new funding for their businesses, have been able to hire additional staff, and have felt empowered to begin improving the culture within their organisations.
Several participants have secured promotions, while others have gained more confidence because of what they learned from the programme and – most importantly – from their peers. The peer-to-peer learning which the programme encourages has helped the first six cohorts form lasting friendships within their peer groups, and these valuable connections will only continue to grow and develop over time.
The second year of the programme – consisting of a further six cohorts – begins in August 2022, and Strathclyde is currently recruiting businesses for these cohorts. Anyone interested in applying to join can find further information about the programme on the webpage here: https://www.strath.ac.uk/business/seed/growingyoursme/helptogrowmanagement/
You can also follow Help to Grow at Strathclyde on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/help-to-grow-management-%E2%80%93-strathclyde-business-school/
The inaugural winners of the Stephen Young Entrepreneurship Award for Outstanding Business Idea Research Paper were recently announced at the first Strathclyde Inspire Supporters’ Dinner.
The award, created as one important element of a £50 million donation to Strathclyde by the charitable foundation of alumnus, entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr Charles Huang PhD, is designed to support the translation of peer-reviewed research to address real-world problems and challenges.
Presented in memory of the late Professor Stephen Young, former Head of Strathclyde’s Department of Marketing and Dr Huang’s supervisor and mentor during his PhD studies, the competition saw entries from all four Faculties with two winners selected by a panel of judges, chaired by Associate Principal Professor Eleanor Shaw OBE. Each winner receives £75,000 to support the development of their idea.
The first of the two awards was given to Dr Daniel Markl’s research project, Micro-Feeder for Solid Pharmaceuticals. Daniel is a Reader within the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. His project is developing flexible, cost-effective manufacture of life-saving medicines for small patient populations, such as highly-targeted cancer treatments, whilst also vastly reducing pharmaceutical waste.
The second award was given to Dr Michele Zagnoni’s Drug Screening of Biopsy-Derived Spheroids. This platform can predict patient response to different drug therapies for ovarian and pancreatic cancers and glioma and will reduce the time to get new treatments to market and accelerate the feasibility of individualised treatment – maximising benefit and reducing toxicity and cost.
Collecting of behalf of Dr Michele Zagnoni, of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, was Karla Findlay, a doctoral researcher within Michele's research group.
The awards were presented at a ceremony in the Technology & Innovation Centre, attended by the Principal, Professor Sir Jim McDonald.
Professor Shaw said, “The judges were hugely impressed with all of the entries we received but our two winners stood out in terms of the potential impact they could make on the wider world.
“The Stephen Young Entrepreneurship Awards is supporting the university’s work in transforming lives, supporting the economy and nurturing entrepreneurship – and we are hugely grateful to the support from the Charles Huang Foundation.”
In addition to the Entrepreneurship awards, Dr Huang’s donation will support the construction of a new building, to be named after him, in Strathclyde’s Technology and Innovation Zone within the Glasgow City Innovation District, and the creation of The Stephen Young Institute for International Business and The Stephen Young Global Leaders Scholarship Programme.
The current full time MBA cohorts - Mayar and Mayar 22 - were invited to take part in three days of workshops and presentations hosted by Curriculo, focusing on People, Change and Negotiation to link academic concepts with theories to “real world” applications.
All 39 MBA students taking part in the three-day event received an accredited Certificate of Achievement from the Institute of Leadership Management. The sessions enabled open discussion and participation in fun exercises to enhance the learning experience.
Karen Glen and David Morrison of Curriculo have delivered a number of inspiring skills development workshop across different cohorts within Strathclyde. The MBA students have certainly benefited from these insightful sessions and appreciate their significance as they move through their MBA journey and beyond.
The 12th Servsig (Service Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association) conference took place at Strathclyde from June 16-18 with 250 participants from around the world, including almost 100 PhD students.
The Department of Marketing hosted the conference, organised by Dr Matthew Alexander, Dr Juliette Wilson and Dr Lenia Tsougka. This was the first in-person SERVSIG conference in two years.
The bi-annual conference brings together academics and practitioners with an interest in service marketing. This year the conference sought to capture the transformational spirit that underpins the University of Strathclyde and explore how through service research and collaboration people’s lives can be reshaped to create fairer, greener, prosperous and more inclusive global economies. This was inspired by the need to rejuvenate the service economy which suffered so much during the pandemic.
The theme of this year’s conference was "Reconnect, Rejuvenate, Reshape", and it included research presentations and plenary sessions with topics ranging from technology, AI and robotics of service delivery to Refugee Wellbeing, Service Inclusion, Customer Experience, Service Design among others.
Keynotes were delivered by Professor Stephen L. Vargo (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) and Dr Elina Jaakkola (University of Turku). Delegates were able to enjoy the conference in the Technology and Innovation Centre and further hospitality through social events at The Merchants House of Glasgow, The Old Fruit Market and Glasgow Science Centre. Overall this made for a very successful and memorable conference.
SERVSIG is a 2000+ international member organization (www.servsig.org) and the Glasgow conference was the 12th global conference.
The Department of Marketing welcomed the return of their International Research Conference. Over two days Marketing PhD students presented their research via a series of presentations and posters. Strathclyde Alum Professor Maria Piacentini, Lancaster University, opened the conference with a Keynote Presentation titled 'Plastic Packaging in People's Lives: Reflections on Engaged Academic Research'. Dr Stephanie Anderson of The University of Glasgow, who gained her PhD in the department, also delivered a Keynote titled ‘Care at the Margins: Establishing a Community Food Hub'.
Professor Piacentini and Dr Anderson also took on the difficult job of awarding Best Presentation prizes. Congratulations to: Sissi Lehto (1st Place with the Professor Michael Baker Award); Sophie Duncan-Shepherd (2nd Place); William Jeferson Vieira de Souza (Excellent Presentation); and Min Hui Angfor (Best Poster).
As the conference came to a close, both staff and students were inspired by the invigorating and thought-provoking research discussed over the conference.
Executive Dean of Strathclyde Business School, Professor David Hillier, attended the 15th annual International Accounting and Finance doctoral Symposium in Athens, Greece, on June 5 which was organised by Strathclyde Business School and took place at the Business School’s Greek centre.
The conference focused on the development of research capabilities and the skills of doctoral students in Accounting, Finance and Banking.
In his opening speech Professor Hillier underlined the importance of the Symposium for both PhD students and current professors. Emphasis was placed on the essence of international interpersonal relations and Professor Hillier also highlighted that experiential learning is continuous over time and can lead to personal and professional development.
The British Ambassador to Greece, Mr Matthew Lodge, attended the conference, while the British Council was represented by Ms Katerina Feggarou, education marketing manager in Greece. Universities represented included Bangor University; Deakin University; Kent Business School, Politecnico di Milano; SKEMA Business School; Tsinghua University; Universidade Salamanca; Universita di Bologna; University of Liverpool and the University of Queensland.
The Greek centre has been operating since 1996, offering a variety of programmes including the Executive MBA, the MBA with specialisation in Shipping and the MSc in Sales and Marketing.
Dr Suzanne Mawson, Dr Emilee Simmons and Dr Lucrezia Casulli from the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship have received funding from the EEUK Enterprise Education and Research Project Fund to investigate how the concept of ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ (EM) is being adopted within UK University curricula.
This 12-month project will collate the views of UK educators on the EM concept, the current scale and scope of EM initiatives and identification of ‘best practice’ initiatives and interventions.
For further information, or to participate in this study, please email Suzanne: s.mawson@strath.ac.uk.
Dr Natalie McDougall, Department of Marketing, has been awarded an ESRC-funded InterAct ECR Fellowship. The fellowships are for Early Career Researchers from the economic and social sciences areas to contribute to efforts to support UK manufacturing become more productive, sustainable and competitive through the diffusion of innovation and digital technologies.
Natalie’s award will support the development of a multi-disciplinary collaborative group and kickstart new research focused on competitive leveraging of frugal innovations for digital development in SMEs.
The 50th Anniversary Celebrations in the Department of Marketing came to a close with one final prize giving for Best-in-Class students across undergraduate classes. Honours student Katie Stewart won the Brand Management Prize for producing the best Heverlee brand plan for the C&C Group. Congratulations also go to Kieran Lockhart, Freja Turner and Gibson Okaruadjere who scored the highest grades across 3rd, 2nd and 1st Year respectively. Prizes were awarded by Elizabeth McKee and Jane Johnstone of the 50th Anniversary Team.
Six first-year business school students did Strathclyde Business School proud on the sustainable development front. With the University’s five strategic values in mind - people orientated, bold, innovative, collaborative, and ambitious - the management development, leadership development and international management development programme (MDP1/LDP1/IMDP) students were presented with an opportunity to use the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a lens to research and identify a positive business innovation and interview a business leader about it through Appreciative Inquiry.
This opportunity was part of their Semester 2 assignment, and also part of a collaborative initiative between the MDP team and the US-based Case Western Reserve University on their Aim2Flourish programme.
The students who received distinctions for their assignments opted to submit their business stories onto the Aim2Flourish platform through their lecturer-facilitated approach and were successfully selected amongst students from all over the world to have their stories published. They also stand to win a prize as the platform celebrates its annual best-of-the-best stories to recognise the students and their supporting lecturers.
Dudu Rance, MDP team, said, “Together with Aim2Flourish, Strathclyde encourages students to experience innovative social entrepreneurship and leadership first-hand through conversations with business leaders to fully understand their contribution towards the impact of our global social challenges. We wish them all the best in the annual competition!”
Dr Julia Smith of the Department of Accounting and Finance has been on research leave as a Visiting Professor in the Finance, Accounting & Management Control group at the grande école, ESSCA School of Management, in Angers, and at the University of Angers, since April 2022.
During this period she has been grateful for the sponsorship support provided by the French Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme under their DEA (Directeurs d’Études Associés, or Associate Research Directors) Programme, and by the University of Strathclyde’s Global Exchange Programme.
She has given presentations on her work, both at ESSCA and the University of Angers, and has been working on revisions to papers following useful feedback from these seminars.
Dr Smith has also been developing ideas for a number of research projects with Faculty members in France, including on ‘Stakeholder and stewardship issues of performance in family business: a Franco-Scot comparison’: https://www.fmsh.fr/en/chercheur/julia-smith
In addition, she has recently started work on her new project, funded by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) in the USA, on ‘Making the case for business investment in new technologies’.
Related to her ongoing work on accountability and SMEs Dr Smith has recently been awarded sponsorship from the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ECSB) towards a workshop that she will be running at Strathclyde in 2023, on ‘Accounting and Accountability in Small Business: insights from research, teaching and practice’.
The MBA Alumni UAE hosted a popular networking event in Media City, Dubai, close to the new branch campus in Dubai Knowledge Park at the end of June.
The event was attended by MBA alumni ranging from 2003 graduates through to those that were in Glasgow in 2022 for their graduation. Old friends met new friends and lots of common ground and new connections were made. Dubai campus staff attended along with Director of SEED, Phil Considine who was in the region to teach on the MBA.
Emeritus professor Richard Butler has published a new book with a colleague Rachel Dodds, professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, entitled “ARE WE THERE YET? Travelling responsibly with your children”. The book has been written both as a guide and to encourage people to be less damaging to the environment, physical and human, when they go on holiday. It is available at Amazon and also a variety of booksellers from August 4, and currently from https://store.bookbaby.com/book/are-we-there-yet1 .
Dr Sreevas Sahasranamam, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, has co-organised an international conference with the Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur, on “People, Ecosystems and Emerging Trends in Entrepreneurship.”
Sreevas has also had a co-written paper published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice entitled, “Act or Wait-and-see? Adversity, agility, and entrepreneur wellbeing across countries during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Lee Knifton of the Department of Management Science hosted a health policy development event at the Scottish Parliament with the Mental Health Minister, Kevin Stewart, which was attended by all major political parties, national charities and professional bodies.