Selected News and Highlights from Clack's research, teaching, knowledge transfer and advisory activities.
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2023/07 Frontiers in Blockchain Impact Factor
Following the release of the 2023 Journal Citation Reports, the 2022 Journal Impact Factor of Frontiers in Blockchain is 3.1 in the Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index. Additionally, the Journal Citation Indicator has increased to 0.53 (up by 15%)
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2023/05 GFMA report references Smart Contract Templates
Smart Contract Templates are mentioned (on pages 83 and 87) in a comprehensive new report from the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA), Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Clifford Chance and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP: "Impact of Distributed Ledger Technology in Global Capital Markets". Read it here: [LINK] 
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2022/06 Norton Rose Fullbright Panel and Presentation
Invited Panelist and Presentation, 21st June 2022.
Event name: Technology Tomorrow
Presentation title: "Smarter Contracts"
Invited to give the opening presentation for this panel session organised by Norton Rose Fulbright. Other panellists included:
- Madeline Bailey, Co-Head of Technology Consulting Practice, Norton Rose Fulbright;
- John Cummins, Founding Partner and Director, Axiome/ Innovation Partners;
- Colin Dawson, Business Transformation Manager, Stena Drilling;
- Prof. Sarah Green, Law Commissioner for Commercial and Common Law, Law Commission;
- Prof. Peter McBurney, Co-Head of Technology Consulting Practice, Norton Rose Fulbright;
- Ciaran McGonagle, Assistant General Counsel, ISDA;
- Adam Sanitt, Head of Disputes Konwledge, Innovation and Business Support, Norton Rose Fulbright; and
- Helene Stanway, Engagement Advisor to the LMG Data Council & Member of the Computable Contract Working Group.
The event was recorded and can be viewed here: [LINK]
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2022-06 agora Digital Capital Markets Panel Session
Invited panellist (15th June 2022), with:
- Richard Hay, Partner, LInklaters
- Naveed Nasar, Chief Product Officer, agora Digital Capital Markets
- Dermot Rice, General Counsel, agora Digital Capital Markets
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2021/08: Frontiers in Blockchain included in Web of Science
Frontiers in Blockchain has been selected for inclusion in the Web of Science within the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)! This is a great achievement, with thanks to the Speciality Chief Editors and Associate Editors for their work and contribution in bringing the journal so far.
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2019/10: Judging Barclays DerivHack 2019
October 2019: Barclays DerivHack judging panel
Barclays DerivHack ran from 16 October to 17 October 2019, simultaneously in three locations (London, New York and Singapore). From the Barclays website (link):
"Following last year’s success, Barclays is once again working with ISDA to host DerivHack. Join us to take on a bigger challenge, leveraging the power of the ISDA Common Domain Model (ISDA CDM) to innovate on the use of common repositories in post trade processing."
With, in London: Lee Braine (Barclays), Antoine Bommelaer (HSBC), Gabriel Callsen (ICMA), Harry McAllister (BNP) and Ian Sloyan (ISDA). And in New York: Neil Chinai (HSBC), Karel Engelen (ISDA), Mark Farucci, John Heliotis (DTCC), Mariska Lambrechts (Barclays), Minesh Patel (Regnosys) Craig Rowe (Cantor Fitzgerald) and Sudhir Upadhyay (JPM). And in Singapore: Mushtaq Kapasi (ICMA), Jimmy Seng Lim (DBS), Rajagopalan Siddharthan (Barclays), Brian Tang (FTA HK), Jim Wang (Regnosys) and Oliver Williams (DTCC),
Barclays DerivHack involved the following partner organisations: ISDA, REGnosys, Digital Asset, R3, DBS, DTCC, ICMA.
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2018/09: Judging Barclays DerivHack 2018
Judging Barclays DerivHack 2018
September 2018: Barclays DerivHack judging panel
Barclays DerivHack ran from Thursday 20 September to Friday 21 September 2018, simultaneously in two locations (London and New York). From the Barclays website (link):
"Barclays is partnering with Deloitte, ISDA, and Thomson Reuters to sponsor the 2018 Barclays DerivHack. This hackathon event provides an exciting opportunity for market participants across the industry to code and showcase solutions that will increase the efficiency of derivatives processing."
With, in London: Clive Ansell (ISDA), Lee Braine (Barclays), Karen Everingham (HSBC), Ian Cusden (UBS), Andrei Kirilenko (Imperial College Business School), and Jim Wang (REGnosys). And in New York: Karel Engelen (ISDA), Rajagopalan Siddharthan (Barclays), Natalie Clareburt (JPMorgan), Sudhir Upadhyay (JPMorgan), Jeff Bandman (ex-CFTC), and Pierre Lamy (REGnosys).
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2018/08: Frontiers in Blockchain Launched
The new research journal Frontiers in Blockchain was launched on the 7th August 2018. See https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/blockchain
The blog post can be found here: https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/08/07/christopher-clack-and-olinga-taeed-launch-frontiers-in-blockchain-facilitating-discoveries-which-could-revolutionize-the-world/
The tweet (with embedded video) announcing the blog can be found here: https://twitter.com/FrontBlockchain/status/1026787677419515906
Background:
Frontiers in Blockchain publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research covering all theory and applications of blockchain and blockchain-related technologies. Field Chief Editors Christopher Clack at UCL and Olinga Ta'eed at the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance are supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international experts. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, practitioners and the public worldwide.
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2018/04: Frontiers in Blockchain
April 2018: Invited post - Joint Field Chief Editor, Frontiers in Blockchain
Frontiers in Blockchain publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research covering all theory and applications of blockchain and blockchain-related technologies. Field Chief Editors Christopher Clack at UCL and Olinga Ta'eed at the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance are supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international experts. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, practitioners and the public worldwide.
Blockchain and distributed-ledger technologies enable new modes of communication, synchronisation, and transfer of value with broad impact for society, industry, commerce and government. The research required to realise the potential impact is substantial and crosses many disciplines. In terms of technical sciences these include cryptology, distributed systems, law, formal methods, code verification and validation, software and systems metrics. The broader agendas will also be covered including economics, finance, business, cryptocurrrencies, tokenomics, governance, social innovation and philosophical treatise. As the field is growing fast, we seek to adapt to the changing research landscape, integrate and cross-link studies and citations in related subfields, and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in these fields and the ways in which they complement each other. Frontiers in Blockchain aims to accept original and high-quality submissions from academia and industry, including theoretical, computational, and experimental research and development, applications, case studies and position papers.
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2016/08: Smart Contract Templates, initial paper
August 2016: Barclays Smart Contract Templates
An initial paper setting out the foundations of Smart Contract Templates, and goals for a possible new language (provisionally called CLACK), was released on the 3rd August 2016. It can be downloaded from two locations:
The new paper was highlighted in articles from coindesk and Burges Salmon:
See: https://www.coindesk.com/barclays-collaboration-sets-forth-vision-smart-contracts-future
And: https://www.burges-salmon.com/news-and-insight/legal-updates/key-themes-from-the-r3-summit-on-smart-contract-templates - also available here: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=60650e98-cffb-4c7b-b9a9-98c15643f616
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2016/07: Smart Contract Templates at R3
July 2016: Barclays Smart Contract Templates - and a new language called CLACK
July 2016 - Media reporting of the June 29th R3 Smart Contract Templates Summit:
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2016/06: Smart Contracts, Barclays, and R3
June 2016: Barclays Smart Contract Templates - and a new language called CLACK
Richard Brown (R3) and Lee Braine (Barclays) were interviewed by the International Business Times:
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2016/04: Smart Contracts
April 2016: Barclays Smart Contract Templates - and a new language called CLACK
18th April 2016 - UCL's Centre for Blockchain Technologies was highlighted during a presentation of Barclays' Smart Contract Templates to a packed audience at London's O2 Centre. See the IB Times article here
In the presentation Lee Braine mentioned a new domain specific language for smart contract templates. The language is called Common Language for Augmented Contract Knowledge (CLACK). CLACK's initial domain is legal contracts - in particular the legal documentation that underpins complex financial instruments - but it is a generic language that can support a wide range of applications. CLACK will be open-sourced in future.
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2015 (since 2012): Portfolio Institutional Awards
2015 Awards - Member of the overall Academic Advisory Panel and the judging panel.
2014 Awards - Member of the overall Academic Advisory Panel and the judging panel.
2013 Awards - Member of the overall Academic Advisory Panel and the judging panel.
2012 Awards - Invited to join the overall Academic Advisory Panel and the judging panel.
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2012/05: Inside ETFS Europe
Keynote presentation at the Inside ETFs Europe conference in Amsterdam (May 2012).
"Market Structure - an Accident Waiting to Happen"
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2011/03: Financial Stability Research Forum
Founded the Financial Stability Research Forum to advise regulators and policymakers (launched March 2011).
The inherent instability of the financial markets is one of the most pressing research challenges faced by the UK. Current theory appears to falter when used to explain, describe and simulate the behavioural issues that lead to instability, and to understand positions of disequilibrium and instability within the financial markets. Regulators and policymakers are therefore keen to encourage more academic research in this area, and to establish a forum where their teams can meet with academics to discuss and explore the challenges in theory and practice.
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2010/02: LSCITS National Stakeholder Board
Invited to join the National Stakeholder Board of the the UK's national research and training initiative in the science and engineering of Large-Scale Complex IT Systems (LSCITS) (02/10 - 02/11).
LSCITS is a consortium of leading British academics and industrial practitioners, funded by the EPSRC to provide a national strategic coordinated research and training initiative focusing on the improvement of existing technical approaches to complex systems engineering and to develop new socio-technical approaches that improve understanding of the complex interactions between organisations, processes and systems.
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2009/10: UCL Computer Scientist honoured
UCL Computer Scientist honoured (24/10/09).
"UCL-CS Financial Computing Director Christopher Clack has been awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Cambridge. The university's highest degree is conferred on scientists with a proven record of internationally recognised scholarship."
Follow this link for the UCL-CS news item and this link for the UCL news item.
- 2009/10: Launch of the FSKTN
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2009/09: Virtual trading floor open to media
Virtual trading floor open to media (24/9/09).
"UCL's virtual trading floor - a virtual trading facility giving students the opportunity to experience real-time streaming market data and business news - will be open to journalists wishing to see the floor in action on Thursday 24th September from 2.30-4pm."
Follow this link for UCL's news item including video footage of the floor in action.
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2008/11: Finalist for LDA Award
UCL's MSc Financial Computing nominated as finalist for the LDA Commercial Deal of the Year Award (18/11/08)
The MSc Financial Computing was nominated as a finalist for the London Development Agency's new Commercial Deal of the Year Award, in recognition of the very close collaboration between UCL, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Reuters.
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2008/05: Virtual Trading Floor partner wins
Virtual Trading Floor partner wins UCL Enterprise Partner of the Year Award (1/5/08).
"On Thursday 1st May 2008, at UCL's inaugural Enterprise Awards Presentation, Thomson Reuters was awarded the UCL Enterprise Partner of the Year Award 2008 for their collaboration with UCL to set up the new Virtual Trading Floor for the MSc Financial Computing degree".
Follow this link for a video (large file).
