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Posted in Leading Change.

Financial Services KTN

The Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network (FS-KTN) (2009)

In 2009 Clack established the independent venture "FS-KTN" and was co-Director of the FS-KTN for the highly successful first period from 2009-2010.

Funding for the FS-KTN was secured from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to bring academia together with industry and encourage partnerships and the identification of business challenges to inform academic research.

At an event to mark the launch of the new KTN on 20th October 2009, Sir Win Bischoff (Chairman of Lloyds Banking Group) addressed the most senior and influential figures in financial services, academics and partner organisations. He congratulated Clack for winning the bid to set up this KTN and called for greater and more focussed partnership between and amongst these communities leading to significant progress in supporting and protecting the future prominence of the UK's international financial services industries.

The FS-KTN advisory board includes: Arun Aggarwal (UK regional director, SWIFT), Prof. Dave Cliff (Bristol University), Sir John Gieve (chairman, VocaLink and ex-deputy of the Bank of England), Prof. Dougal Goodman (Lighthill Risk Network), George Maddison (vice chairman of UK investment banking, Credit Suisse), Andrew Milligan (head of global strategy at Standard Life), Lord Ron Oxburgh, Adrian Pearce (Credit Suisse), Prof. Michael Power (LSE), Marilyn Ramplin (Ramplin Capital), Anthony Salz (executive vice-chairman of Rothschild), and Richard Ward (CEO, Lloyd's).

The FS-KTN was designed as a dynamic network of partner organisations, led by an independent special-purpose not-for-profit company "FS-Net". The partner organisations included:

  • Universities: Brunel University, Cass Business School (City University), Cranfield University, Heriot-Watt University, The Financial Services Research Forum (Nottingham University), University College London (UCL), University of Aston, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Exeter, University of Oxford, University of St. Andrews, and University of Strathclyde.
  • Networking, consulting and domain-specialist organisations: Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, Expand Consulting, The 451 Group, The Financial Services Club (see also The Finanser), The London Technology Network, The Insurance Intellectual Capital Initiative, The Practical Law Company, and The Willis Research Network.
  • Trade associations & Professional Bodies: The Actuarial Profession, The Association of British Insurers, and The Chartered Insurance Institute.
  • Regional bodies and business support: Greater London Enterprise, The Leeds Financial Services Initiative, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Financial Enterprise, and Ven Management.

The new KTN had substantial support from across industry and academia and was welcomed by Sir Peter Middleton and Professor David Rhind:

Sir Peter Middleton, Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, President of the BBA, and ex-Group Chairman of Barclays, said: "We need to stimulate debate and facilitate collaborative working with academia, government and business. Practical and inclusive approaches like this will be instrumental in moving this forward."

Professor David Rhind CBE FRS FBA, Chairman, Royal Society Hidden Wealth Report Working Group added: “The recent Royal Society study into the role of science in the services sector showed we can do much better by bringing together those at the cutting edge in universities with senior players in service businesses. In particular, there has been a serious disconnect between these two groups in parts of the financial services - to our great detriment. So I very warmly welcome the initiative of the Technology Strategy Board and its partners in creating a Financial Services Sector Knowledge Transfer network.”

Outstandingly successful in its first year: the core team undertook over 150 meetings with industry and academia, ran over 30 workshops and 35 other events, and started work on 25 projects. Two key outputs for the FS-KTN in the first year were (i) a comprehensive review of research challenges in the financial services industry, to guide the research councils and academic researchers and (ii) a study of systemic risk in the financial markets (outsourced to JWG, with substantial input from Clack).

Follow this link for the UCL-CS news item and this link for the UCL news item.