Finance: Research, Policy and Anecdotes

As already announced on Twitter, I will be leaving The Business School (formerly Cass) at the end of this academic year and join the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the EUI in Florence as Chair in Financial Stability. Even before that I will take on the role of director of the Florence School of Banking and Finance (FBF) on a part-time basis from 1 March. The FBF has been built up by an amazing team under the leadership of Elena Carletti over the past few years and I am absolutely thrilled to join this great team.  The FBF has been very active with training programmes and seminars and has smoothly transitioned to an on-line format for both in 2020.  For the second semester of 2021, we hope to return to a mix of on-line and residential courses, conferences and seminars. Having a European research and training centre on financial sector issues is more important than ever, as the challenges in this area have only increased over the past years – starting from the fall-out of COVID-19 (where we will see more this and in coming years) over challenges of green finance to digitalisation and the rise of fintech. And while it is still early days, I also hope to broaden the geographic focus beyond Europe to other regions of the world, including emerging and developing countries; as well as build up research capacity.  The interdisciplinary nature of the Robert Schuman Centre will support a similarly broad approach for the FBF. And obviously, this will also be reflected in my blog entries – less on Brexit, more on academic fields and disciplines beyond finance. Stay tuned!

Overview