Collaborations

Collaborations with international partners are central to CIMR’s activities and identity. They begin with joint research and publications and then broaden to develop joint teaching-related activities.

Three are in various stages of development, one in the US and two in Europe.

Partnership 1 CIMR – Kogod School of Business, American University.

Kogod School of Business, American University

On Thursday April 19 2019, Kogod School Dean, Professor John Delaney and Helen Lawton Smith formally exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding between the two Business Schools.

The collaboration is based on long-standing shared research interests between Professor Tomasz Mroczkowski (Kogod, American University) and Professor Helen Lawton Smith (CIMR/BEI school/Birkbeck). It quickly developed into joint research projects involving Professor David Bartlett, Professor Erran Carmel (Kogod), Dr Muthu De Silva, Saverio Romeo and Filipe Martins (CIMR).

With support from the BEI school, it has grown into the organisation of joint events and research activities including a joint project on quantum technology (Romeo, Carmel and Lawton Smith). A teaching programme will follow.

Partnership 2 CIMR – Vaasa University, Finland

Vaasa University, Finland

This collaboration began life in October 2021, and will be formalised though a memorandum of Agreement.  

Its origins lie in long-term formal and informal academic engagement between several CIMR colleagues including Professor Helen Lawton Smith and Dr Muthu De Silva (Birkbeck) and Professor Martin Meyer who is now Director, Innovation and Entrepreneurship InnoLab, University of Vaasa, Finland. He is a long-standing Visiting Fellow of CIMR. His contacts with the Birkbeck team date back to Professor Meyer’s time at Sussex University (Lawton Smith) and University of Kent (De Silva and other Birkbeck Colleagues). Joining us in this collaboration is Professor Ben Laker, Henley Business School who is a visiting Fellow at Vaasa University, and is now a CIMR Visiting Fellow.

The collaboration is based on research, joint PhD student activities and joint events. It will be extended into joint teaching programmes.

On June 1 2022, the partners are hosting a hybrid event in Birkbeck on How to succeed in Global, Sustainable Innovation: Academic and Practitioner perspectives, with presentations from each university as well as from Innovate UK,  Intellectual Property Office, UK and the Climate Policy Initiative.

Partnership 3 CIMR and UIC Barcelona

UIC Barcelona

CIMR has teamed up with UIC Barcelona’s Quality & Innovation for Service Excellence (QISE)  group to further research of mutual interest to both groups.

QISE’s expertise covers in particular issues around:

  • Quality management
  • Innovation management
  • Knowledge creation and knowledge transfer
  • Entrepreneurial Finance

CIMR, together with QISE, organise joint workshops and encourage research collaborations among our members.

This most recent research and teaching collaboration formally began with  a “Getting to know researchers across the institutions” online meeting mid-February 2022 at which researchers from both Business Schools met each other.

The first joint event is a CIMR Debates in Public Policy workshop on May 19th 2022 on “Venture Capital industry and Entrepreneurial Finance”. It will feature speakers from CIMR and UIC Barcelona and the British Venture Capital Association.

CIMR is grateful to the support given to these collaborations by Ms Andrea Williams, Internationalisation & Partnerships, BEI School.

Other Collaborations

CIMR also has very close ties with Circle, Lund University in Sweden where Professor Lawton Smith and Dr Federica Rossi are Affiliated Members. Links are based on research, publications and reciprocal participation in academic research dissemination events.