Category Archives: Business and Law

‘Geography, Open Innovation, Diversity and Entrepreneurship’: 19th Uddevalla Symposium at Birkbeck

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This post was contributed by James Fisk, graduate administrator at the School of Business, Economics and Informatics. Here, James reports from the 19th Uddevalla Symposium, held at Birkbeck from 30 June to 2 July 2016.

Delegates network at the 19th Uddevalla Symposium held at Birkbeck this summer

Delegates network at the 19th Uddevalla Symposium held at Birkbeck this summer

“Silicon Valley is a mind-set, not a location” Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, once said. Indeed, his emphasis on ethos over geography is an interesting one, but successful entrepreneurial ecosystems, in an age of innovation increasingly dominated by monoliths such as Google and Microsoft, can be far more challenging and problematic than his assertion suggests. Can, and should, an innovation system such as Silicon Valley be replicated elsewhere?

This was just one of many questions up for discussion as Birkbeck hosted the 19th Uddevalla Symposium between the 30th June and 2nd July, the first time the symposium has been held in the UK. The three-day symposium which looks to bring together cutting edge research from leading academics, researchers and practitioners invited attendees to consider this year’s themes of ‘Geography, Open Innovation, Diversity and Entrepreneurship’.

Invited by Birkbeck’s Centre for Innovation Research Management (CIMR), researchers from across the globe came together for the annual symposium, with over 50 papers up for discussion, over 150 attendees arriving from 27 countries and expertise from fields as diverse as Canadian aerospace and Swedish E-Government.

Master of Birkbeck, Professor David Latchman CBE, conducted the formal opening of the event and welcomed an array of scholars, entrepreneurs and researchers to the college. Over the following three days, attendees heard keynote speeches from leading scholars in the morning, before parallel paper sessions saw fervent debate spread across Birbeck’s Bloomsbury campus in the afternoon. With at least four parallel sessions available on each day, it was a productive and busy few days for those interested in entrepreneurship and innovation.

As the latest research from across the world was to be found at Birkbeck, the symposium offered the chance for not only sharing papers, but for formulating new ideas and cultivating collaboration across industries, disciplines and national borders.

Speaking at the event, Birkbeck Professor of Entrepreneurship Helen Lawton Smith said: “It’s a huge privilege to host this event and bring together diverse and important strands of research in one place.”

CIMR logoSo, can, and should, we look to replicate Silicon Valley? The answer is, unfortunately, not as straight forward as the question. With Keynote speeches such as Professor Wim Vanhaverbeke’s (Hasselt University) ‘Open Innovation in SMEs’ and Professor Gary Cook’s  (University of Liverpool) ‘Cities and International Entrepreneurship: Towards an Integration of International Business, Economics, Geography and Urban Economics Perspectives’ attesting to the many complex regional and international factors that make-up often delicate entrepreneurial ecosystems across the planet.

The annual symposium ended on Saturday 2nd July, with PhD candidate Tina Wallin (Jönköping International Business School) winning the best PhD candidate paper award for her paper ‘Labour Knowledge Complementarity and Firm Innovativeness’. Professor Ashish Arora (Fuqua School of Business, Duke University), Professor Suma Athreye (Brunel Business School, Brunel University) and Dr Can Huang (Institute for Intellectual Property Management, School of Management, Zhejiang University) won the best paper award for their work ‘The Paradox of Openness Revisited: Collaborative Innovation and Patenting by UK Innovators’.

Those wishing to read more can find a wealth of information on the Uddevalla symposium website, where you can find working papers, previous winning papers and keep track of upcoming events. For similar events looking at innovation and entrepreneurship, check out Birkbeck’s Centre for Innovation Management Research (CIMR) webpage.

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Strategies for university knowledge exchange

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This post was contributed by James Fisk, graduate administrator at the School of Business, Economics and Informatics. Here, James reports from a workshop held Birkbeck’s Centre for Innovation Management Research (CIMR) on 29 June.

CIMR logoWhat should a successful Knowledge Exchange strategy look like? This was the question posed by CIMR (Centre for Innovation Management Research) on June 29 as they invited academics, professionals and policymakers for discussion of an issue situated at the heart of Higher Education’s changing landscape.

Knowledge Exchange, sometimes also known as Universities ‘3rd Mission’, is the process in which the exchange of ideas, research results, technology and skills between higher education institutions (HEIs), other research organisations and businesses, the public sector and the wider community takes place. It is widely regarded as the third component in a triumvirate of priorities for Higher Education, also consisting of Teaching and Research, with its aim being to reconcile the productive forces of higher education with the world outside it. Whilst a broad definition of knowledge exchange is fairly clear, understanding how it works in practice and how it should be effected, is a far more nuanced and complex challenge.

Indeed, the wide variety of panellists and attendees at the workshop provided an indication as to the breadth of the debate. The panel, comprising Kellogg College Oxford Visiting Fellow Jeremy Howell, Stanford Professor Henry Etzkowitz (also Birkbeck visiting professor), HEFCE’s Senior Policy Advisor Adrian Day, Birkbeck’s Dr Pierre Nadeau and UniversitiesUK Policy Analyst Martina Tortis, took the diversity of the sector as one of its chief considerations. In a sector comprised of markedly different institutions, the question of strategy and collaboration is one that looms large.

Of course, the most appropriate strategy would be one tied to the characteristics of the institution, one that acknowledges specific strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncratic factors in its composition. However, if there are undoubtedly aspects of knowledge exchange that resist comparison and, which cannot be translated easily, how are we to construct a strategy for moving the sector forward?

Academics, professionals and policymakers come together to discuss what a successful knowledge exchange model looks like

Academics, professionals and policymakers come together to discuss what a successful knowledge exchange strategy looks like

Birkbeck’s Dr Federica Rossi, along with Marti Sagarra from the University of Girona and Eva de la Torre from the Universitat Autonoma de Madrid, offered some key insights as to how we can begin to map such diverse and varied engagement across institutions. Their application of a nonparametric technique, Ordinal Multidimensional Scaling, allowed them to not only give a holistic picture of the strategies and activities of UK higher education institutions, but crucially, to consider how knowledge exchange infrastructure correlates to the objectives, strategies and characteristics of institutions.

Talks from Rosa Fernandez (National Centre for Universities and Business) and Adrian Day (HEFCE) provided further perspective on the issue of Knowledge Exchange, as they considered how it can be made equitable and scalable in such a varied sector. Their work explored how growth in knowledge exchange is rather tied to the strategic breadth of exchange activities and commitment of resources, rather than just institutional size itself. Therefore, a small institution with a commitment to Knowledge Exchange can see sustained growth in its impact, whilst larger institutions without specific consideration for KE can experience stasis or decline in their performance.

With many more perspectives coming from a range of academics and policymakers, from discussion of the Biomedical ‘Golden Research Triangle’ of London and the South East, to a study of organisational models in British Universities, it’s clear that Knowledge Exchange has an important role to play not only in the future development of Universities, but in constructing a future for the world outside it.

You can find out about future events on the CIMR website. Those wishing to know more about knowledge exchange may find HEFCE’s guide informative.

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Birkbeck’s TRIGGER initiative explores gender inequality in Higher Education

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This post was contributed by James Fisk, graduate administrator at the School of Business, Economics and Informatics.

Trigger logoOn the 28 June Birkbeck took further strides toward gender equality and equity, as the EU Project TRIGGER (Transforming Institutions by Gendering Contents and Gaining Equality in Research) invited an audience of professionals, academics and students to consider how best to inspire aspiring female professors and managers.

Indeed, gender inequality persists in higher education despite the many positive steps that have been made by the sector in recent years. The implementation and acceleration of Athena SWAN, as well as vocal support from leading academics and professionals, has raised the profile of gender inequality substantially. Yet a report published by the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) in 2015 and looking at statistical data gleaned from the sector elucidates the enduring prevalence of gender inequality. In 2015, 77.6% of all Professors were male, whilst in SET (Science, Economics and Technology) subjects the figure was even higher at 81.8% (ECU).

How barriers can be overcome

The event ‘Aspiring female Professors/Managers – What can aspiring female professors/managers learn from those already in these positions?’ exists within this milieu and looked to develop dialogue, networking and solidarity to consider how such barriers can be overcome. As one speaker, Simona Iammarino, Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics, remarked during the panel discussion:

“We need more than just small cogs; we need a holistic culture that lends and prides itself on both gender equality and equity.”

So, how to eradicate an inequality that is both historic and persistent? To those at the event the answer seemed to become clearer as experiences were shared among the audience and the panel. Many panel speakers discussed the necessity of having role models, with young and ambitious students, academics and professionals all attesting to the benefits of inspirational figures in the guise of mentors, line managers and colleagues.

As Birkbeck’s Professor of Entrepreneurship Helen Lawton Smith stated, “we need to understand that we’re all in this together and it is up to each of us create the support necessary for women to succeed in academia and professional roles”.

TRIGGER image

The TRIGGER event on 28 June 2016

Fostering organisational change

Birkbeck’s four year TRIGGER initiative was set up in January 2014 as an applied research project aiming to foster organisational change through promoting the role of women in research and academia. It complements several other initiatives introduced by Birkbeck to reduce gender inequality in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine and Mathematics) subjects and managerial roles, such as ASTREA (Networking for women in professional and support roles), AURORA (Developing leadership skills for women) and Athena SWAN.

It is through such exchanges that commitments are made, not only to fighting disparity among gender pay and seniority, but also to fully comprehend the myriad dimensions of the struggle at hand. Indeed, until the persisting mechanisms of gender inequality are fully understood, they are doomed to perpetuate themselves. Discussions at the event ranged from the issue of age and its gendered role in the life of academics and professionals (see Fields Medal), to the challenges of younger women eager to assert themselves in male dominated professions.

The event itself embodied this sense of solidarity and commitment to gender equality, with networks forming around shared aspirations, experiences and struggles. If indeed institutions are to instigate a culture equipped to overcome inequality, it will be through a sharing of information, a proliferation of networks and through the support of key decision makers.

You can see a video taken of the event online, for those wishing to read more you can catch a summary of the panel responses posted to LinkedIn. You can read more about TriggeR  and upcoming events on their website. Students interested in mentoring programmes run by the college can check out Mentoring Pathways.

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Law on Trial: Can the EU regulate a financial crisis?

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This post was contributed by Daniele D’Alvia, MPhil Law student in Birkbeck’s School of Law. Here, Daniele reports on the Law on Trial 2016 event held on Thursday 16 June: “Can the EU Regulate a Financial Crisis?”

This year, Law on Trial – the School of Law’s week-long programme of free-to-attend public lectures and panel discussions – focused on the EU referendum. The annual showcase brought together academic staff, recognised internationally as authorities in their field.

Law on Trial 2016

Law on Trial 2016

The 16th of June 2016 has been a landmark event for the 2016 ‘Law on Trial’ series of conferences. Indeed, the 4th day of ‘Law on Trial’ has been specifically dedicated to the role of financial law in Europe. The main question that Professor Michelle Everson has posed for the panel discussion, namely ‘Can the EU regulate a financial crisis?’ has shown to be a popular topic for the high interest that the audience has manifested during the event.

In particular, Prof. Ellen Vos (Maastricht University) illustrates the regulation and the role of European agencies. She reminds of the importance of delegating powers to agencies in the EU in order to regulate risk and uncertainty (for instance, risks in the environment, food, health and safety and specifically in relation to financial crisis). On this line Prof. Michelle Everson introduces the concepts of moral hazard, risk management and systemic risk. These terms are exceptionally important in the understanding of the current financial crisis and pave the way for the speech of the third guest speaker, namely the head of the compliance office of Wells Fargo, Patrick Devine.

He gives an outstanding presentation by pointing out how the current financial crisis is global in nature, but the solutions provided therein are local. For instance, think of the EU banking insolvency procedures there is not a universal bank insolvency law, because insolvency law is national in nature. To this end, the Single Resolution Mechanism in Europe is a first attempt to provide a uniform regulation of bank insolvency through the operation of the Single Resolution Board. He outlines that the credit-crunch that occurred in America in 2007-2008 was only the trigger, but not the cause of the current financial crisis. Indeed, he concludes that the cause of the current economic crisis is just inside the same economic system, namely capitalism.

This has always been the cause in his view and the legislative frameworks have only tried to regulate the trigger and not the environment in which triggers stand. Finally, Dr. Matthias Goldmann presents the idea of Karl Polanyi on the utopia of the ‘self-regulating market’. Indeed, in 1944 Polanyi wrote the ‘Great Transformation’, which divided between a society that uses markets as one valuable tool, and ‘market society’ that places everything on the auction block, even labour. Therefore, Dr. Matthias Goldmann argues that the idea of ‘market society’ has been one of the causes of the current financial crisis and he, therefore, provides a re-interpretation of the phenomenology of contemporary financial markets, where the market itself should play a more prominent role.

In the end, the panel discussion has been dominated by the conception of risk in financial crisis and how risk can be prevented or regulated.

The conception of risk and financial risk between economic theories and philosophical arguments

I would like to introduce here the concept of the ‘past qualification’ of risk based on a possible re-interpretation of Professor Frank Knight’s book ‘Risk, Uncertainty and Profit’, which has developed a philosophical argument on risk instead of a pure economic theory on profit. The book has always been recognised for its outstanding contribution towards a distinction between risk and uncertainty, namely between objective and subjective dimensions of risk towards a theorisation of insurable form of hazards and true uncertainties.

Prof. Knight’s theory of risk is part of the remarkable story on risk.[1] Indeed, according to Bernstein risk management is a revolutionary idea where far from being an antagonist, as the mysterious fate or the voluntas dei, the future has become an opportunity. The concept of risk-taking has been developed in Western countries from Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci (1202), Cardano’s Liber de Ludo Aleae (1525) and Galileo’s Sopra la Scoperta dei dadi (1623) through the laws of probability framed, inter alia, by Pascal and Fermat,[2] and in particular the science of statistics of Graunt, Petty and Halley,[3] promoting the concept of insurance as a commercial tool in the eighteenth century. In other words, the story of risk has initiated by formalising its ontological meaning based on an objective dimension.

This was a necessary conclusion because from an epistemological point of view the discourse on risk can be complex. Risk under this new light is the probability of occurrence of an event that may or may not occur, but risk is always a measurable uncertainty. In Prof. Knight’s words:

‘the practical difference between the two categories, risk and uncertainty, is that in the former the distribution of the outcome in a group of instances is known (either through calculation a priori or from statistics of past experience), while in the case of uncertainty this is not true (….) the best example of uncertainty is in connection with the exercise of judgement or the formation of those opinions as to the future course of the events, which opinions (and not scientific knowledge) actually guide most of our conduct’[4].

So, it is possible to state that the knowledge about risk is the knowledge of a knowledgeable situation. In other words, the ontological discourse on risk is representing what is knowable in principle or a priori by virtue of laws of probability and the science of statistics. It is knowledge of objective facts. For this reason, in my view the real revolutionary idea of Prof. Knight is the categorisation of risk on the past line.[5]

The practical effect of the ‘past qualification’ of risk in global financial markets

Now, the words of our guest speaker Mr. Patrick Devine are even more intelligible: in his view capitalism has always been the cause of the current financial crisis. In philosophical terms we could say that the past qualification of risk in its objective dimension has always been the cause of every financial crisis because simply it has always been there, but it has never been regulated. In Patrick Devine’s words: ‘we regulate the trigger of a crisis (we could say what has caused the uncertainty), but not the environment in which the triggers stand (we could say the real risk).

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Footnotes

[1] Bernstein (1996). Peter L. Bernstein (1996) Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk (John Wiley & Sons)

[2] Bernstein (1996) pp 57-72.

[3] Bernstein (1996), p 92.

[4]   Knight (2002), p 233.

[5] Knight expressly said that uncertainty is the formation of opinions as to the future course of events (i.e. a subjective belief).