Happy New Year!

We thought we’d start the New Year by sharing some of our academic and research team’s highlights from 2015, as well as a few work-related resolutions for 2016.

Professor Cathy Cassell:
“One of my research highlights from last year was winning an award at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Vancouver. The paper entitled 'Understanding translation work in the multi-organizational translation of ideas', which was co-written with Bill Lee, was placed as runner-up for the Carolyn Dexter Award for Best International Paper. There are only two all-academy annual awards and this is one of them. There were 3,646 accepted papers at the conference this year, so I am delighted with this accolade.

“My New Year’s resolution for my research is to pace my journal submissions a bit better. Last year I ended up with three major revisions all at the same time and they have just all come back as three major/minor revisions which all need doing again. So I am going to try and plan better this year. As with most New Year resolutions, I am not too optimistic of success!”

Kathryn Watson, Research Impact Manager:
“My research highlights last year include writing two practitioner orientated research reports along with colleagues here in the Business School - the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) International Big Data Symposium Report and a report on international retailing aimed specifically at the retail sector. I hope that these demonstrate that academic and practitioner-relevant research sit well together.

“My New Year’s resolutions for research are to write two journal articles, to win a big grant and to help promote the impact agenda.”

Simon McNair, Post-doctoral Researcher:
“For me, the highlight of 2015 was finding out in July that I had been awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship to conduct a three-year project beginning in 2016. The project will see me work in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau to develop more effective support and advice for those in financial difficulty. The Leverhulme Trust awarded 100 Fellowships in 2015, having received nearly 1000 applications. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to pursue the project, and particularly here at Leeds University Business School.”

Ilias Vlachos, Associate Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management:
“Last year, I was fortunate to see my work on reducing waste in food supply chains published in a number of journals including Planning Production and Control journal. Joining the European platform ‘Food for Life’ in 2015 was another highlight as it assists me in influencing policy agenda towards a waste-free world.

“My resolution for 2016 is to continue research on how businesses can increase sustainable operations, reduce environmental impact throughout their supply chains and operate in ways that return value to shareholders without wasting valuable natural, economic and social resources.”

Sajid Siraj,Lecturer in Business Analytics and Decision Science:
“2015 was good for me. I added new features in my decision making software (PriEsT), and also practised my skills on KNIME Data Analytics. My aim for 2016 is to learn node app development and to learn how to integrate these apps with data analysis tools.”

Andrea Taylor, Post-doctoral Researcher:
“In 2015 my EUPORIAS work package partners and I completed work on developing and testing strategies for communicating uncertainty in seasonal climate forecasts to users in a range of sectors. The first paper from our work package was published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (Taylor, Dessai & Bruine de Bruin, 2015). 

“In 2016 I will be working to disseminate the key recommendations from this work to climate service providers, and to extend my work on the communication of risk and uncertainty.”

Nick Wilson, Professor of Credit Management, Director of the Credit Management Research Centre:
“A highlight for me last year was having the report I wrote with Professor Mike Wright - ‘The equity gap and knowledge-based firms’ - used by the Government in the development of a new tax-advantage venture capital policy that was announced in the Summer Budget. Our research looked at how small knowledge-intensive firms grow and how this is affected by the so-called ‘equity gap’ - the difference between the external funding that these businesses require to develop and the amount that is actually available. Our research on the extent of the equity gap in the UK was fundamental to the government gaining EU approval for the new policy. The UK is the first member state to gain such approval.

"I have a personal New Year’s resolution rather than work one, which is to run another marathon before I hit 60." 

Barbara Summers, Professor of Human Judgment and Decision Making, Co-Director for the Centre for Decision Research:
“My key achievement in 2015 was taking up my elected role as President of the European Association for Decision Making. I gave my presidential address (“Reality can be quite complex…or how qualitative research can add insights to real world problems”) at the 25th Subjective Probability, Utility, and Decision Making (SPUDM) Conference, Budapest, Hungary, in August.”

Sarah Shaw, Faculty Research Manager:
“Last year I started a Master’s degree and took up Yoga. My resolution for the next 12 months is to finish the MA and to keep up with the yoga!”

Nick Williams, Associate Professor in Enterprise, Director of the Research in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Studies (REES) group:
“My highlight of 2015 was climbing every mountain in Bosnia on a research trip in April. A supposed three hour drive from Sarajevo to Banja Luka ended up taking seven hours. After the incomplete main motorway ran out, the little hire car took every wrong turn available through the mountains. It is a beautiful country though. All in the cause of research on entrepreneurship in post-conflict states. 

“My academic resolution for 2016 is to follow my own mantra (borrowed from a wise person once upon a time) of 'don't get it right, get it written'. Then to follow that with 'get it published'.” 

Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Professor with Leadership Chair in Behavioural Decision Making, Co-director for the Centre for Decision Research:
“A lot happened last year, but a couple of highlights for me include co-editing a special issue on decision-making competence for Frontiers in Psychology and serving on the council of the Canadian Academies' expert panel on Health Product Risk Communication, resulting in a public report targeting practitioners and policy makers.

“2016 looks to be another busy year – for example, the Centre for Decision Research will continue to host seminars by many international speakers on topics relevant to decision making about health, finances and environment. Also, I joined the US National Academy of Sciences expert panel on "The Science of Science Communication." This ad-hoc multidisciplinary committee of experts will produce a consensus report that synthesizes what is known about effective science communication and describes a comprehensive research agenda to improve the communication of science to inform decisions relating to topics that often are contentious. Getting everything done while keeping my sanity is my New Year's resolution!”

Mat Robson, Professor of Marketing:
“My research highlight of 2015 is not a single achievement, although I have had paper acceptances, given keynotes, seen research students fly through their vivas, and had a very good meeting with a large corporate partner in which they agreed to take forward the implications of our research. The highlight for me was being able to spend more time on my research as I transitioned from a faculty management role. As a researcher you have to be constantly reading and writing. You need to be able to remember the last paragraph you wrote. 

“My resolution for 2016 is to spend time doing the basics, albeit in a more systematic way.”

Hinrich Voss, Associate Professor in International Business:
“2016 is the year to finally finalise research projects that have been hanging around for far too long and get to get them off to the journals. They are too interesting to not finalise them. Watch this space!”

Hannah Preston, Research Support Assistant:
“One of my highlights from last year was seeing the launch of this Research and Innovation blog. It’s been really interesting finding out about the various different research projects going on within the Business School. It’s also really exciting to know that people from across the world have been reading and sharing our posts.

“My work resolution for 2016 is to try and do trickier tasks straight away, rather than putting them off. Something always seems worse in your head the longer it stays on your to-do list!”

If you have any research resolutions you’d like to share with us, please do leave a comment.

We’d like to wish all our readers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2016.