Who we are

Dr Christian's primary research interest focuses on emerging collaborative online innovation communities. His area of research includes digital innovation ecosystems, community governance, digital platform strategy, emergent ICT-based business models. Part of his research involves developing and applying novel data science techniques in the study of online innovation networks.Jose has worked on and has co-authored research reports for various large European projects including CRE8TV, SPARK, and INSPIRE. For the CRE8TV project he identified barriers to value appropriation in digital market places. For the SPARK project he helped identify how to support social enterprises in their innovation activities. For the INSPIRE project, Jose co-developed a set of business innovation tools to support open innovation activities in European SMEs.

Dr Figlioli's main research interests are in the field of (a) open innovation for SMEs, for instance, assessing SMEs capabilities for OI and exploring SMEs' open innovation journeys; and (b) traditional and new models of innovation habitats, such as science and technology parks, incubators, accelerators, and innovation hubs.

Shes was 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.

Dave's research interests are focused on using evidence-based theory to improve managment practice. His overall theoretical orientation is Organisational Sociology and he draws extensively from the practice area known as Organisation Development. His study of highly innovative organisations supplied the insights used in the Managing Innovation Training Programme that has been experienced by more than 10,000 managers in 19 countries. He has undertaken research into the role of open innovation in not-for-profit organisations and he is exploring the interdependencies between entrepreneurship, change, organisation development and innovation managment. He has completed a study of the styles used by Change Agents and is preparing this study for publication. For more than two decades he has investigated the competencies required for an organisation, and its leaders, to be effectively agile and his latest book 'Exploiting Agility for Advantage' was published by De Gruyter in Berlin in September 2020.

My primary current interests are sustainability, climate change and strategy - evaluation, policy, development and implementation. My textbook, Sustainable Business Strategy: Analysis, Choice and Implementation was published by De Gruyter on 4 April 2022.

I have sustained research profiles in design and design management; creative industries - product, process and value; and continuous improvement in new product development.

My interest in railways links all of these.

I am a world leading researcher in the field of stock market liquidity. I am particularly interested in developing new measures of liquidity, how liquidity reacts to news, carbon markets and the liquidity of zero leverage firms. More recently, my research has also included liquidity of SMEs and cryptocurrencies. My future research plans are in the areas of liquidity and the coronavirus and on the association between liquidity and asset pricing.

Despoina’s research interests are on management of innovation in SMEs, peer-to-peer learning, open innovation, innovation policies and action research methodologies.She is an active member of CENTRIM and her research is contributing for the last 20 years on contemporary innovation management issues in many European and international research projects

Despoina is one of the main contributors in the work of Learning Networks e.g.  -Profitnet Impact Case Study- and has been working with SMEs and other organisations for at least 18 years on creating methodologies and strategies for companies to innovate and learn from each other as well as from external partner organisations (experts, academics, big companies etc.). 

My research seeks to connect leadership and projects. I am particularly interested in bringing in ideas about temporality and boundary work into the understandings of leadership, and ideas about plural leadership and meaning making into the understandings of leadership in projects. My previous and current research has been drawing on practice-based theories to look at various questions such as how individuals or collectives from different organisations or functions effectively work together to accomplish leadership work in major projects, how the leadership work of meaning making in a vanguard project contributes to developing grassroots innovations for sustainable development. The settings for my research include public organizations, private organizations and grassroots community projects.

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 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 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 relating to climate change, policy design and low-carbon development. I have published on subjects including REDD+, energy investment and mining.

Paul Levy has been a member of CENTRIM since it was founded in the 1990s. His research interests include innovation management, the management of change, creativity and team collaboration. In particular his more recent research has focused on digital innovation, the skills of digital management and mastery, the rise of disruptive innovation including cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology. He has also undertaken research into how small to medium sized enterprises innovative on and offline, engaging in projects examining the potential of drop-in action learning to stimulate innovation. Recently he was also involved in research that focused in digital transformation worknig with an in-depth case study approach in the I.T sector.

My research interests lie primarily in the field of labour economics, socio-economic development and applied econometrics, with a particular emphasis on the economic and social aspects of labour migration. My research focuses on three areas: 1. undocumented labour migration; 2. precarious and atypical forms of employment; 3. migration and regional development. I am interested in both applied and theoretical research in these areas and has conducted a range of research consultancies for the Development Centre of OECD, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for International Migration (IOM) and national bodies.

In November 2019, my project proposal on 'the impact of migrant remittances on promoting small and medium-sized enterprises in home countries' was approved for funding of a PhD studentship by the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership:https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/postgraduate-research-degrees/funding-opportunities-and-studentships/2020-scdtp-migrant-remittances.aspx

In October 2017, I completed a project, concerning atypical and precarious forms of employment in Greece, in support of the impact assessment on the review of the Written Statement Directive (Directive 91/533/ECC), commissioned by PPMI - Public Policy and Management Institute, Vilnius, Lithuania. The study is available at: http://bit.ly/WSD-PPMI

I sit on the coordinating committee for Bulgaria in the longitudinal SHARE study - Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (http://issk-bas.org/share-survey-wave-7/).

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.

Sushil’s research is in the area of international trade and development. It covers broadly: (i) Trade in primary commodities such as coffee and tea, with a focus on problems faced by commodity producers. (ii) Agricultural trade, with focus on consequences of trade barriers. (iii) International development issues such as Fair Trade, CSR, social enterprises, Environmental improvement initiatives, SMEs, and food security. The research aim is to analyse the interaction between international trade, ethical trading and economic development – it is mostly applied and issue-driven with a strong policy focus. His ongoing research projects include study of non-tariff measures in agriculture trade, market concentration in coffee markets, social enterprises and voluntary social standards.

Dr Noor Muhammad primary research areas consist of four clusters, including entrepreneurship in a conflict zones, women entrepreneurship, enterprise development, and multidisciplinary research. Entrepreneurship in conflict and rural regions have been recognized by academic scholars and researchers to be researched. International funding agencies provide opportunities for researchers to research on entrepreneurship in those countries facing uproar circumstances and how entrepreneurship and new enterprises can contribute to providing employment opportunities in the deprived regions. Therefore, he has developed realistic possibilities not only for further research projects and publications but also for collaboration with other international organizations who are interested to support his research further. Regarding women entrepreneurship, his research focuses that how women entrepreneurs operate small businesses in conflict environments face formidable challenges where a little research has been undertaken to explore these women entrepreneurs. Furthermore, he also publishes papers in other areas of interest to conduct a multidisciplinary approach, including operations research, economics and health care innovation management. He has published papers in these areas in well-reputed journals and some are under review.

Marina is an internationally renowned policy, planning and sustainable development expert and Professor of Tourism and International Development at Brighton School of Business and Law, which is an Affiliate Member of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

She is a geographer with a background in economics, with significant experience of high-quality research, consultancy, PhD supervision, teaching and curriculumm development.

Since 2017, she has been playing a key strategic role as Academic Lead for the University’s Responsible Futures’ Research and Enterprise Agenda, an initiative aimed at fostering innovation through impactful  interdisciplinary research and consultancy collaborations, at local, national and international level.

She has advised on numerous international cooperation and research assignments funded by International Development Organisations (IDOs) such as: The World Bank, the European Union, The UN (UNESCO, UNIDO, UNWTO), the Commonwealth Secretariat, National Ministries and Tourism Boards, Regional Development Agencies and NGOs. Such work has provided the basis of 2 REF2014 and REF2021 highly rated Impact Case Studies. Examples of projects undertaken are also available here. 

In 2018 she was appointed as REF2021 panelist for UOA C24: Sport, Tourism and Leisure. 

She is known globally for her excellence in leading and collaborating with multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder and multi-cultural teams and for her commitment to generating new knowledge on ways in which tourism can play a key role in sustainable development by stimulating local economies, conserving the environment, developing peoples and changing lives.

Her research spans across 3 main areas, including: 

- Innovation, responsible entrepreneurship and sustainability in tourism - i.e. British Council project on Innovationa for African Universities;  circular economy, contemporary arts and community development, contemporary arts for sustainble development in Africa.

- Policy, Planning and Governance - i.e. master-planning; training needs analysis and capacity building; responsible leadership.

- Development and Impact - i.e. impacts assessments of IDOs' interventions; monitoring and evaluation; participatory research methods; and niche (tourism) product development.

I prefer applied research and research that has real practical implications for industry and, where possible, society. My research interests currently focus on digital, online, mobile technologies and the consumer; big data; consumer behaviour in hospitality; consumer and sustainable food technologies; social media addiction; entrepreneurship; and digital archives often in the context of tourism and hospitality - see the menumuseum.co.uk

I also enjoy publishing research relevant videos (as well as doctoral and  business advice) on my YouTube Channel 

I am Editor in Chief for Tourism and Hospitality Research (THR) by Sage. I am also Associate Editor for Journal of Tourism (Revista de Turism). I currently sit in the editorial boards of  Journal of Vacation Marketing (JVM), Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport &Tourism Education(JoHLSTE), Tourism Today Journal (COTHM), Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology (JHTT), Tourism Today Journal, (COTHM) & Hospitality Unsettled a Student Podcasting Journal (2020 – Current) https://www.hospitalityunsettled.com/p-journal and previously for the Journal of Tourism & Sport (LJTSCI). I am also a regular reviewer for the following journals: The Services Industries Journal (SIJ), Journal of Tourism Planning and Development (TPD) Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CHQ).

I really enjoy supervising PhDs and welcome any expression of interest in the areas of my research from potential PhD students.

Steve has been at the forefront of action research in the field of Change. Active in high pressure change and transformation environments, he leads academic consultancy and development teams in large high profile organisations. His action research approach integrates the worlds of published academic research; research led action processes; and commercial and public practice, which allows him to generate effective solutions at client organisations. His policy interest in public/private activity was forged in the emergent period of public private partnership where he conducted research on leadership in this newly evolving business form, in collaboration with Government and KPMG. Still fascinated by the tacit and overt politics behind such practice, Steve is a regular contributor of change-in-action experience and critical academic evaluation to the International Research Society for Public Management. Author of a significant impact case study rated at 4* in the 2014 REF, he continues to collaborate with organisations where interventions have taken place to generate case based learning.

I’m an economic sociologist excited by the impact of technology on society, education and business. 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. The findings have been published by Emerald as part of their Great Debates in Higher Education series.

I research the history and role of higher education, graduate employability and how graduates might best be served by university. I am interested by the role social media, big data and internet technologies in how society works and how business is conducted.

My research interests span across three interconnected, interdisciplinary research domains: research related to boundary spanning elements in organisations, research on sustainability and related issues and research on e-commerce and digital marketing. 

Within the larger domain of boundary spanning elements, I focus specifically on frontline employees in service organisation, sales persons, sales management as well as research on management of distribution channels in firms. Across these research domains, I have used a variety of research approaches and theoretical lenses. 

In sustainability related resarch, I have looked at adoption of environmental strategies by firms, adoption of pro-environmental behaviour by families through the family decision making lens. I am currently looking at envioronmental related decision making by ethnic entreprenuers in U.K. I have also conducted studies in issues like student gambling, problem drinking etc. 

In e-commerce and digital marketing, I am looking at a host of issues like servicescape design, e-service quality, psychological contract violation in e-commerce, internet banking loyalty etc. 

Most of my research involve a positivist research philosophy that attempts to build theory through theorising relationships between constructs embedded in social phenomon and testig the validity of these inter-relationships. 

George has led research on innovation and entrepreneurship. His research includes themes such as managing open innovation in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs); linking SMEs with the research base; enabling business development and innovation activities through peer-to-peer learning networks; empower SME growth through innovation coaching; innovation  for non-high tech SMEs; new product development strategies for SMEs; managing and supporting innovation in Social Enterprises; and the life cycle for SMEs. 

George has also worked in various other innovation areas of research such as innovation policies benchmarking, business processes rengineering for SMEs and scenario foresight for innovation.

Contemporary art champions, SMEs productivity and tourism development in West-Africa: Looking beyond the commercial value of the “artefact”.

My study will identify innovative, socially responsible, sustainable and ethical pathways to contemporary arts and community-based tourism development and productivity in West-Africa.

African Contemporary arts is increasingly contributing to business innovation and socially responsible entrepreneurship at grass root level. The role of champions, beyond their immediate artistic engagement is evident on Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Cote D’Ivoire and Mali.

 My research aims at developing critical understanding of the “value of arts” beyond the commercial meaning of the term, and the role of champions in the development of the creative sector SMEs (i.e. galleries, fairs, museums, studios) and value chain connection with the tourism sector in West-Africa.

Ben is completing a PhD in Economics across the three institutions participating in the South Coast DTP, under the supervision of Rob Hayward (University of Brighton) and Jonathan Wadsworth (London School of Economics).

His research, fully funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, seeks to ascertain whether previous UK studies' failure to detect adverse effects to natives' wages owes to the existence of other labour market adjustment mechanisms. Specifically, Ben examines whether the wage and employment impacts of immigration differ for heterogenous skill and age groups, and whether it induces firms to locate their production activities in the UK (as opposed to overseas) or change their production methods (and use the abundant labour type more intensively).

Ben is currently working at the Department for Work and Pensions and has previously worked for UN's migration agency, the International Organization for Migration, in their Migration Research Division.

I am a PhD student at the University of Brighton, United Kingdom. I hold a MSc in the field of Marketing and a Bachelor degree with emphasis in Marketing from Kuwait University My research interests involve  digital marketing communications, integrated marketing communications and marketing research.More specifically; Relationship marketing in social media , eloctronic Word of Mouth and customer engagement in social media. I am intrested also in marketing consultantation for small business startups.

Blockchain, Supply chain management, logistics. 

I am a first-year postgraduate research student at the University of Brighton. My main research area includes liquidity and financial stability. In addition, I have a keen interest in topics related to asset pricing particularly the use of a blend of econometric models and liquidity measures to determine asset pricing. 

A research PhD student (nearing completion) with work, teaching and research experience in business, economics and finance.

Mustafa conducted research aimed at assessing the efficiency of different exchange rate regimes in Egypt between (1980-2016) by asking three research questions: (1) Does the independence of the commodity market and monetary policy increase in light of the exchange and price flexibility? Systems? (2) Is there a response between monetary policy and the exchange rate in Egypt? (3) Does choosing an exchange rate regime affect economic growth?

Interested in macroeconomics: equilibrium in economics, fiscal policy, monetary and monetary policy, economic growth, economic cycle, inflation and the exchange rate.

Asset pricing, Portfolio choice, Corporate finance

Akinyo Ola is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Brighton Business School. He is an ACCA Chartered Accountant and a Performance Management Professional with diverse experiences in private and public sector organisations. He is currently researching on Improving Project Capabilities within the UK public sector.

Lucy  is a research student at the School of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton. She completed her undergraduate studies  in International Business Management (2012) and Master’s studies in International Event Management (2014) and currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Brighton

With six years of experience as an educator, Lucy takes pride in teaching in international settings. Her teaching expertise and research interests include International Event Management, Sport Management, Hospitality Management, Tourism management, Risk and Crisis Management

Contribution to the body of knowledge:

Lucy aspires to have her research develop and add to the theories relating to the unique contribution to the productivity of human capital in a culturally diverse dominated hospitality industry. The research is to add knowledge to the existing gap on human capital. There is abundant debate on human capital in a nationalistic context but little has been discussed about the global demographic trend where migration has brought about experts in the hospitality field from across the world. On top of the research is to underscore the underpinning drivers of innovation as a function of human diversity and co-creation. By nature, the hospitality sector hosts guests from various nationalities. In this regard, it is only logical to establish whether diversity should be engrained in the hospitality industry to meet the diverse and unique needs of the diverse guests/customers. Its her aspiration to develop a framework upon which talent arising from migrant experts can be tapped to engineers innovation both in service and products in the hospitality industry.

Research interests:

Lucy’s research interests is to widely explore the subject area (Human capital and migration) within the current and past debates in academia in order to align the research focus in a manner that prioritises the research journey effectively. Lucy also looks forward to contextualise and commit to a time framed journey which will make it possible to successfully accomplish the research within the set timeline.

I am currently a PhD student at Brighton Business School, under the supervision of Dr George Tsekouras and Dr Aline Figlioli. My research, fully funded by the Royal Thai Government Scholarship, is to focus the importance and role of science park in the innovation ecosystem.

According to my background, I graduated in material science and worked as a research assistant in the scientific community for a year prior to study innovation management in the UK in 2018. This served me to realise how important science and technology contributing to national development in many aspects. Therefore, I particularly interested in the science park's role to promote and support scientific and technological inventions through the process of research commercialisation.

Rageshree is pursuing her PhD in Innovation Management. 

Her Research studies the role of Absorptive Capacity to enable a labour efficient IoT(Internet of Things) implemented market. Apart from being an active researcher ,she has also worked with the DRIVA project in the University of Brighton as a Research Fellow for Data Science and Visualization (School of Computing, Engineering and Maths). DRIVA (Digital Research & Innovation Value Accelerator) is a £1.3m University of Brighton research project funded by the European Structural Investment Fund and Arts Council England that aims to provide technology SMEs, creative arts practitioners and cultural organisations supported and authorised access to Gatwick Airport’s big data. She Brings with herself rich and valuable experience in Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Skills. Now she enjoys imparting Lectures in the various departments of the Business School Brighton like Entreprenuership and Strategy, Economics and Operations Management along with her active research work.

Sarah Waddington Azambuja MSc. 

Academic Background

Sarah has undertaken two undergraduate courses (FdA and BA Hons) in Events and Hospitality management, at the University of Chichester and the University of Brighton.  She has an MSc from the University of Brighton, in International Hospitality Management.  She is currently a postgraduate research student at the University of Brighton.

Research Interests

Her research interests include workplace well-being, work life balance and emotional labour.  For her PhD thesis, she will be studying "burnout" syndrome; the feeling of being emotionally spent, and its impact upon individuals perceived well-being. This will be studied within the context of the hospitality industry.  

Professional Background

Sarah has a background of hospitality management within the Brighton area, including hotels, bars and restaurants.  She is currently the director and co-founder of Bon Vivant Ltd, a mobile catering company serving French street food throughout Sussex and the South of England.