Who we are

My primary research interest is on entrepreneurship emerging from new forms of innovation in the digital economy. This area of research includes the mapping of innovation systems active the digital workspace, new ICT-based business models, and digital platform strategies. Part of my research involved developing new methodological techniques for the study of online innovation networks. 

Marc has spent over 28 years researching in four core areas:

1 The Dynamics of Early Stage Survival and Growth 

His interests lie in examining the key determinants of why some firms fail to survive their formative years, why some survive, but fail to grow, and why some survive and manage to achieve growth. Of specific interest is the interaction between human capital and financial capital and identifying which combinations contribute most in explaining survival and growth. Currently, he is investigating the complex relationships between innovation and growth and the chain of causal events that can lead to rapid growth.

2 The Financing of SMEs and Entrepreneurial Businesses

Marc's interests focus on identifying issues around the capitalisation of firms and how firms and financiers interact with one another. Two particular areas of interest are credit rationing and the nature of debt contracts and provision, and the role of venture capital and informal equity in supporting innovation. He is investigating the consequences of banks' market power in the context of small business lending and the dynamics of credit supply over the recessionary cycle, and how informal investors make their portfolio investment decision in the context of crowd funding and P2P.

3 Labour Market Dynamics
Marc has researched widely on key labour force dynamics including the rise in importance of self-employment as a form of work organisation, the job creating ability of the self-employed, and gender aspects of self-employment. He has also studied the effects of higher education on labour market outcomes and how different qualifications lead to different job and pay outcomes over the life-cycle. A third strand of labour market research focuses on pay discrimination and disadvantaging characteristics. Currently, he is investigating the incidence and job characteristics of women in senior management roles.

4 Evaluating Public Policy
He has been conducting evaluations for 20 years during which he has investigated the UK Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme (four times), UK Venture Capital Trusts, the UK Enterprise Investment Scheme, the UK Transitional Loan Fund, UK Regional Venture Capital Funds, UK High-Tech Funds, UK Early Growth Fund, UK Enterprise Challenge Fund, UK Aspire Fund, UK Investors in People and the UK Business Link Health Check programme. Internationally he has evaluated the SME financing activities of the Danish Growth Fund for the Danish Ministry, the design and effectiveness of European SME financing instruments for DG Regio of the European Union, and the Australian Innovation Investment Fund. He also assessed the potential viability of a loan guarantee scheme in Barbados for the Inter-American Development Bank. He was invited by the Swedish Government Growth Agency (Tillvaxtanalys) to present a case for a Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme for Sweden at a seminar attended by Swedish Secretary of State (with responsibility for Company Management, Competition, and State Ownership of Enterprises) Eva Lindström in March 2017. He articulated a case for the introduction of a new loan guarantee scheme in Sweden to alleviate problems around access to finance for smaller firms. His proposal is now being given further consideration by the Secretary of State.

Professor Marc Cowling is currently ranked in the top 8 per cent of economists in the world by citations (H-index) according to Research Publications in Economics (REPEC, July 7 2018), in the top 5 per cent of researchers on ResearchGate (October 7, 2016) and in entrepreneurship He was ranked 23rd in the world over the period 1995-2006 according to “Rankings of the Top Entrepreneurship Researchers and Affiliations”.

Dr Nikos Daskalakis is Senior Lecturer in Finance and Financial Management at the University of Brighton. He obtained his PhD in Corporate Finance from Athens University of Economics and Business, earned his M.Sc. in Multinational Accounting and Financial Management from the University of Reading, UK and graduated in Business Administration from Athens University of Economics and Business, specialized in Accounting and Finance.  Dr. Daskalakis is an experienced researcher having published in numerous top-rated academic journals and his publications enjoy a high level of awareness with more than 700 citations. His current research interests lie on the scientific area of financial innovation, including crowdfunding and the crypto economy, capital structure determination and small firm financing.

Dr. Daskalakis has held consulting positions top European bodies for matters that regard financial services. He was a member of the European Crowdfunding Stakeholder Forum (ECSF), assisting the European Commission in developing policies for the area of crowdfunding (2014-2016). He served as a member of the Financial Services User Group (FSUG), consulting the European Commission on matters that refer to the users of financial services (2010-2016). Last, he was member of the Banking Stakeholder Group (BSG) of the European Banking Authority (2013-2018), consulting the Authority on actions concerning regulatory and implementing technical standards, guidelines and recommendations.  

Dr. Daskalakis combines academic research with practical experience. Before joining the University of Brighton he was Head of Market and Entrepreneurship Development Discipline in the Small Enterprises Institute of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchants (2008-2015). Part of his role was to design and implement several consulting projects for SMEs and to represent the Confederation in various domestic and international fora for matters that mainly regard SMEs access to finance. 

Dr Aline Figlioli main research interests are in the field of (a) open innovation for SMEs, (b) innovation management and innovation policy, particularly related to traditional and new models of innovation habitats, such as science and technology parks, incubators, accelerators, and innovation hubs.

Currently, she is a researcher at the INSPIRE project (https://www.inspire-smes.eu/), Coordination and Support Action funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 work programme, aiming to understand and support open innovation management in Europe’s SMEs.

Current research interests include:

How Top Management Teams select an Innovation Strategy

The effectiveness of Innovation-Intensive Action Learning

Use of innovation management approaches to improve academic research practice

The use of M&E (Monitoring and Evaluation) as a driver of innovation in development projects

Roles of Innovation Change Agents

Corporate Governance

Executive Compensation

Business Ethics

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Entrepreneurship

Political Connection

Capital Structure

Behavioural Finance

Higher Education Advances

Design and design management

Strategy - policy, development and implementation

Creative industries - product, process and value

Continuous improvement in new product development

Railways

Market Microstructure, Financial Econometrics 

My research is driven by my interest in understanding the twin challenges of environmental protection and economic development, especially where the two intersect. I am interested in questions of appropriate forms of natural resource management, including the economic and policy instruments that are required to incentivise such management.

I have extensive experience in the Latin America and Caribbean region focusing on the management of forest, mineral and water resources. I also have interests in understanding the impacts and effectiveness of global and regional emissions trading schemes and have undertaken research on both the European Union's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). I am interested in how engagement with the private sector can help to address local, regional and global resource management issues.

I have experience in a range of primary data collection techniques including
survey design, interviewing and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data
using a range of software packages. I have worked as an independent consultant
for NGOs, industry associations and international research agencies on projects
in relating to climate change, policy design and low-carbon development. I have
published on subjects including REDD+, energy investment and international
climate change mechanisms for engagement with developing countries

I have been a researcher in the fields of innovation management, creativity, change management and digital leadership for over twenty years.

I am chair of the Art of Management and Organisation Conference (AOMO), as well as an Associate of Warwick Business School.

My research focuses on the nature of knowledge and learning in organisations and seeks to link this to questions about innovation and change. I am particularly interested in the social practices of producing, negotiating, and using knowledge within varied organisational settings, but especially project-based, network, and temporary forms of organising. My research draws strongly on practice-based theories, emphasising knowledge and learning as active accomplishments emerging from specific social settings that have important implications for how practices are shaped. Investigating the boundaries between different knowledge communities and how these are constituted, reproduced, crossed, challenged, and redrawn is a key element of this. The settings for my research have been many and varied, ranging from car factories to sewage plants, power stations to animation studios, offshore oil and gas platforms to humanitarian aid projects, road maintenance depots to aerospace companies, big rail construction projects to small firm action learning networks. Despite (or maybe because of) this diversity, the thread running through my research has been an enduring interest in the social and political dynamics of knowledge and practice and how these unfold in different contexts.

I teach and research in the area of Supply Chain Managment. Research interests include the 'bullwhip effect' in supply chains and supply chain improvement.

Dr Sushil Mohan is the Economics and Finance Subject Leader at Brighton Business School. He is also the lead for the CENTRIM Research Group on ‘Enterprise, Trade and Sustainable Development’.

The focus of his research is on the interaction between international trade, ethical trading and economic development – it is mostly applied and issue-driven with a strong policy focus. It covers broadly: (i) Trade in primary commodities such as coffee and tea, with a focus on problems faced by commodity producers in developing countries. (ii) Agricultural trade, with focus on consequences of trade barriers for developing countries’ agricultural exports and climate change for food security (iii) International development issues such as Fair Trade and environmental improvement initiatives. The research has been supported by FAO, UNCTAD, International Coffee Organisation and Institute of Economic Affairs. 

The research has been published widely in high ranking refereed journals. His Hobart Paper on Fair Trade presents an interesting perspective on socially responsible trading; it has been discussed on radio programmes and reviewed in newspapersincluding the Financial Times, Independent and Guardian.  Development’.He is on the Editorial Board of Emerald Journal ‘Qualitative Research in Financial Markets’ and member of European Trade Study Group, Development Study Association and UNCTAD Group on Non Tariffs Measures in Trade.

Ongoing projects include social enterprises, voluntary social standards, market concentration in coffee markets, non-tariff trade barriers, trade openness and health.

I research the history and role of higher education, graduate employability and how graduates might best be served by university; as well social media, big data and digital entrepreneurship. I’m an economic sociologist excited by the impact of technology. My joint research project into the Fully Functioning University was awarded Researchers of the Year 2017 by Professor Mark Cowling, Brighton Business School Head of research. As Principal lecturer at BBS I developed successful modules in e-commerce, digital transformation, big data and digital marketing.

*Chair of BBS School Board

* Union representative

*On Cross-School Research Ethics Committee for Social Sciences

Professor Howard Rush has engaged in research in the field of science and technology policy, and innovation management, for over forty- years . He was a founder member of CENTRIM at the University of Brighton, where he was  a director for 26 years. 

His research has been in the areas of socio-economic impacts of information technology, benchmarking of research and technology institutes, the diffusion of new technologies, the evaluation of national and regional innovation policies, managing innovation in complex projects, illegal innovation in cybercrime and, most recently, innovation within humanitarian relief.  

Professor Rush has published over 125 academic papers and has been the Principal Investigator on over 25 major research projects and numerous consultancies funded by a range of national and international agencies including the UK Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank, the European Commission, and United Nations agencies such as the ILO, UNDP, UNESCO and IFAD. He was the Principal Investigator on a DFID funded project looking at ways of strengthening the humanitarian innovation ecosystem and was a member of the expert group advising the World Humanitarian Summit’s ‘Transformation through Innovation’ theme.

George has led research on innovation and entrepreneurship. His research includes themes such as

• managing open innovation in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs);
• SMEs linkages with research organisations; 
• enabling business development and innovation activities through peer-to-peer learning networks; 
• empower SME evolution through innovation coaching;
• innovation management for non-high tech SMEs;
• new product development strategies for SMEs;
• managing and supporting innovation in Social Enterprises;
• life stages for SMEs. 

George has also worked in various other innovation management fielscenatio foresightds such as innovation policies benchmarking, business processes rengineering for SMEs and scenario foresight for innovation.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Supply Chain Practices, Procurement, Operations Management, Project Management, Project Based Innovation and Learning.