CIMR Annual Report 2022

As we release our 2022 CIMR Annual Report and look back at the past year activities, it is fantastic to see how much we have achieved, and we can definitely say it was another successful year for us here CIMR. We continued to make new friends and consolidate relationships with our existing colleagues. Over the year we can see four main differences in our portfolio compared with 2021.

The first is that we are even more internationally collaborative. We are building on our collaborations with the Kogod School of Business, American University, with a new formal collaboration with Vaasa University in Finland which ties in our long-term colleague Martin Meyer and with our new colleague, Ben Laker, Henley School of Business. In a new development, CIMR has teamed up with UIC Barcelona’s Quality & Innovation for Service Excellence (QISE) group to further research of mutual interest to both groups.

Second is our dramatically improved media engagement with the appointment of a part-time Media Engagement Manager, Gabi Losito, funded by a BEI School Impact Grant in January 2022. CIMR now has a Twitter account @Birkbeck_CIMR, and a LinkedIn page with fresh and engaging content posted daily. The website has been redesigned to be more accessible and up to date, new areas have been introduced one and others have been improved. Additionally, a new strategy is in place to optimise videos, introduce new videos and podcasts as well as to keep improving the website user experience.

Third is a much more formal focus on working with small and medium sized enterprises.  This followed from CIMR having played a key role in Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics being awarded the Small Business Charter accreditation in December 2021. The application was led by CIMR’s Dr Pam Yeow. The CIMR website now has section on SME engagement, how we collaborate with SMEs and what kind of resources they can find at CIMR. Plans are underway for short courses to be offered by CIMR fellows and alumni.

Fourth is CIMR’s applications for research and impact funding. As well as the BEI School Impact grant for 2022 to fund Gabi, we are fortunate that the School has kindly agreed to fund Gabi for another year. This is in recognition of the importance of research and impact visibility. Future REFs, TEFs and Birkbeck’s own evaluations are constant challenges.

Our flagship programme of events, CIMR Debates in Public Policy, continued successfully in 2022 with 14 events: 4 spring, 6 summer and 4 in the autumn. These have been organised by CIMR alumni, Visiting Fellows and PhD students in conjunction with core academic staff. Two of the summer CIMR events were additional to the CIMR Debates in Public Policy: one was a BEI School Impact week event and the other was in a Research Centres showcase event organised by Muthu De Silva.

Our Birkbeck’s annual Public Engagement Awards recognise and celebrate researchers undertaking innovative and exemplary public engagement activities. CIMR’s project ‘CIMR Debates in Public Policy’ was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Innovation category -Capacity Building.

Furthermore, we are pleased that our community has grown further during 2022, with new fellows joining CIMR: two academics, Abdulrahman Al-Surmi (Management) and Olivia Hamlyn (Law) and a new Visiting Fellow, Professor Michael Mainelli Chairman, Z/Yen Group Limited). Additionally, Professor Tomasz Mroczkowski and Professor Martin Meyer, have been appointed as Visiting Professors at Birkbeck until 2025 (May 2022).

Finally, congratulations to Professor Muthu De Silva who was appointed to be Professor in Entrepreneurship in October 2022 and to Professor Tim Vorley who was made an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list in January 2023.

My thanks to the whole CIMR team for the wonderful work and team spirit. CIMR’s full report for 2021 is available here.

Professor Helen Lawton Smith, Director of CIMR