A delegation from SBS travelled to Madrid to attend a research workshop from May 23-25 which was led by Professor John Quigley. Other attendees were Juliette Wilson, Stewart Johnstone, Ellie Luu, Alex Dickson, Sam Mwaura, Matthew Review, Kendra Briken, and Helen Templar.
SBS have been working with ICADE since 2014, primarily on teaching related collaborations. SBS has several strands of existing and developing strands of engagement with ICADE including UG student exchange, joint PGR supervision introduced in 2019, and an MBA in Global Energy Industry which is jointly delivered and first launched in 2018.
SBS’s aim is to escalate our relationship through establishing collaborative research activities with all departments of SBS and ICADE. SBS has been working closely with the senior research management team at ICADE to identify appropriate academics in both institutions with strong potential for developing collaborative research
The immediate outcome of the workshop will be to establish common research areas of interest and identify potential collaborative partnerships between academics across institutions.
The current model also involves the recruitment of PhD students on to the partnership track at each institution. Students are competitively selected and receive a full studentship with a travel bursary as each recipient is expected to spend a period of their studies at the other institution, typically up to 6 months across the duration of the programme. Students are allocated a supervisory team with academics from both institutions who collaborate to ensure students can meet the necessary requirements to achieve the award from their ‘home’ university.
Miguel García Sanchéz and Grace Akullo, second and third year PhD candidates respectively from ICADE are on a three month research stay at SBS. They are grounded in the same multi-disciplinary PhD Business and Regional Competitiveness, Innovation and Sustainability but are pursing different research tracks embedded in sustainable business – Miguel is working on knowledge co-creation for urban transitions while Grace is working on entrepreneurship education for women entrepreneurs in developing contexts.
Grace said, “We have both received super warm welcomes here, been assigned second supervisors to work with and are integrating well both socially and academically. We appreciate SBS for the great lengths to receive us this way and make us feel at home!”