My UEA Story: Gbenga Ibikunle
Lecturer/Assistant Professor, University of Edinburgh
I am a Lecturer/Assistant Professor with the University of Edinburgh and an Academic Fellow with the Centre for Responsible Banking and Finance at the University of St Andrews. I also serve on the board of one of the foremost financial markets research centres in Europe, the European Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre (ECMCRC). My position at ECMCRC sees me working together with some of the world's foremost research leaders in financial markets microstructure research. I am convinced that I owe the relative success in launching my academic career to the support and guidance I received from the faculty at the Norwich Business School (NBS) during my time there as a PhD student.
Studying for a PhD at NBS is one of the most inspired decisions I ever made, in the end it turned out to be a no brainer! The NBS PhD programme ensures that students are quickly put through their paces with a view to helping them take charge of their research agenda within a relatively short timeframe. This is done while constant support is provided by world leading academic faculty. My advisors helped devise a development plan tailored to take advantage of my strengths and improve on my weaknesses, they emphasised focus on contemporary research issues and asking headline hitting research questions. Research papers based on my PhD thesis now enjoy global publicity in relevant forums and this has resulted in helping me to build a fast rising research profile a little more than a year into my first job post PhD. The confidence and the skills I have developed as a result of owning my research agenda early on during my study period have prepared me for taking on very challenging positions in high pressure academic and public policy environments. The emphasis put on the link between research and policy during my time at NBS also serves me quite well when providing research-based advice to policy makers. For example, over the past year I have been engaged in giving policy advice to high ranking EU Commission officials on arresting the carbon permit glut in the EU emissions trading market.
I only have fond memories of my time at NBS, where academic development was not the only benefit of time spent there. I also developed lasting relationships with colleagues, these relationships have endured to this day and they traverse work and personal spheres. I continue to work with colleagues from NBS and I hope to continue doing so.
Further details:
https://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/staff/gbenga-ibikunle
https://www.ecmcrc.org/management/
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/business/rbf/academicfellows.shtml