We recently had our away day on the 16 July 2025 at the Engineers’ House in Clifton, Bristol.
The day started with an informal get-together over coffee and this was swiftly followed by an interesting and engaging presentation by Professor Mario Vafeas, Professor of Marketing, Bristol Business School, UWE Bristol. His presentation focused on the key success factors for Knowledge Exchange Partnership (KTP) funding success (an academic’s viewpoint). Mario reflected on the experience of his first KTP, how he got involved and how he enjoyed every bit of the whole experiences despite their ups and downs. He thought getting it right in terms of the value addition and ensuring you are involved in a project you are passionate about are key ingredients for successful KTP projects. Having a wonderful team behind you such as the Research and External Engagement team makes a world of difference. According to him, there would be some challenging points, but overall, it is well worth the efforts.
We then had a group engagement led by Professor Ismail Adelopo, Professor of Accounting and GARG Leader, on the importance of disseminating our research and enhancing the visibility of our activities. Ismail stressed the importance of making our research accessible to the public. The Group explored the current state of the GARG’s blog which has been gaining momentum recently. We also explored having a LinkedIn page for the Group. The discussions led to some action points which should lead to more visibility of our research within and outside the University.
Ellen Parkes, UWE Bristol’s KTP Development and Growth Manager, Research and External Engagement (REE), gave a talk on Understanding the key success factors in Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Ellen assumed a zero knowledge on the topic and provided the most basic information, building on this to then explore the key success factors and how to navigate the KTP landscape especially for accounting and finance academics. She noted the peculiarities of our discipline and highlighted the limited number of KTPs in the subject area but nonetheless provided invaluable tips on cross disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to KTP. Her interactive approach made the session engaging with a variety of questions and scenarios which she competently handled, thereby demystifying KTP.
Tony Higson, UWE Bristol’s Impact and Commercialisation Manager, then took the stage to talk about impact and commercialisation of our research. What these could look like and how we may want to go about doing these. His session provided important information about spinoffs from research activities and the whole raft of support the University can provide in this space. If not sure about anything, get in touch, was his parting message!
The afternoon session started with a panel presentation by Professor Cherif Guermat, Dr Ghulame Rubbaniy, Dr Yan Zeng and Dr Ismail Misirlioglu. They shared their publishing experiences including collaborating with colleagues withing and outside the university and the tricks that underline success. Some of the highlights were captured below:
Building on the panel discussion, Professor Ivlevs, Professor of Economics at Bristol Business School, then provided useful insights into publishing in 4* and 4 rated journals in Economics and the transferrable skills that could be applied to the Accounting and Finance disciplines. He divided his presentation around three main themes – what, how and where – what to write, what journal to publish in and what topic to focus on. How addresses the writing skills. The unique styles that 4* and 4 rated journals require and lastly where- focuses on understanding your own internal preferences about where to write. We know now that Tom likes writing in the library or in a café. His presentation was lively and engaging. We then had general discussion about publishing with further insights from colleagues.
Professor Adelopo used the remaining half hour to talk about ethics within accounting and finance research. He focused on the ethics application process and the approval procedures. He highlighted the key factors to consider when putting in an ethics application bearing in mind to leave sufficient time for the application and not leaving it to the last minute which often leads to mistakes in the applications resulting in delay to gaining ethical approval. Professor Adelopo serves on the College Research Ethics Committee and is happy to give feedback on pre-submitted ethical applications.