Kate Bingham at Business School conference in 2022

An overview of how the School fulfils its research impact agenda

It isn’t enough for faculty to carry out research that could change the world for the better, it’s also essential for the School to build industry partnerships and relationships with policymakers to ensure their work makes the impact it deserves.

Partners

The impact of the School’s research is felt both within the world of academia and beyond, and this is partly achieved through industry partnerships. These relationships create an opportunity for companies to codevelop and support research in areas of mutual interest, as well as increasing the potential impact of the research. 

Through its faculty, the School sustains a wide range of partners, which have contributed to impact of major international reach. For example:

  • Professor Tarun Ramadorai’s Report on Household Finance for the Reserve Bank of India led to the mandatory benchmarking of interest charges on the home loans market, informing the choices of 50 million mortgage applicants annually.     
  • Research collaboration by Drs Enrico Biffis and Erik Chavez with Munich Re, the World Bank and Tanzanian banks led to an innovative loan-insurance product that resulted in $13 million of additional loans to 50,000 small-scale Tanzanian farmers.

In addition, Chinese multinational technology company Huawei recently agreed to contribute £2.5 million in funding to the Leonardo Centre. Other major corporate partners include Chinese multinational e-commerce business Alibaba Group, British multinational investment bank and financial services company Barclays, and the UK’s National Health Service.

Media

Alongside the School’s relationship with industry partners, it is crucial to communicate the results of our research to key stakeholders. The School’s Institutional Marketing & Communications team supports the internal and external communication of the School’s research mission. This work includes developing content, including articles, videos and podcasts, as well as sharing it in on the School website, in the School magazine and its social media channels. It also secures coverage in external channels.

Since 2014, the School’s thought leadership platform IB Knowledge has reached 1.5 million page views. Articles cover subjects across the School’s range of research areas, including innovation, finance, health and leadership. Examples of media coverage include US magazine Forbes, covering Professors Carol Propper and Nelson Phillips on the disastrous confusion in the UK’s response to coronaivirus (COVID-19), Professor George Yip on COVID-19 and globalisation, and Professor Celia Moore on whether ethical leaders are good for business. 

Events

Throughout the year, the School hosts an extensive programme of conferences, designed to serve two core purposes. In addition to forming a key part of the School’s contribution to the advancement of research across the global academic community, they also serve as a pathway to collaboration and impact through knowledge exchange with the public and private sectors. 

The annual flagship industry-focused conference combines contributions from School faculty with leaders of external organisations to address issues of global significance. These events focus on our key strategic themes and priorities. Previous conferences have covered acting on climate change, digital transformation and sustainability, with speakers including the CEOs of Lloyds Bank and Sainsbury’s, the Editor of Glamour, and M. Yunnus, a Nobel laureate. Individual centres also hold their own high-profile conferences to allow the School’s research community to interact with and access the latest academic, practitioner and policy views.

The School attracts numerous distinguished visiting speakers to its departmental seminars. For example, in the academic year 2019–20 the School hosted 83 speakers from universities across the globe, including Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Toronto and Bocconi.