Skip to main content

Research success for ICMA Centre lecturer

The ICMA Centre’s Dr Ioannis Oikonomou has reason to look fondly on 2012 as he has experienced two significant academic successes in recent months, which are bringing wider recognition across Europe to the research he is undertaking.

In early 2012 Dr Oikonomou’s project, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Credit Costs’ was awarded a highly prestigious grant by the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim, Germany. The Strengthening Efficiency and Competitiveness in the European Knowledge Economies (or SEEK) grant is worth approximately €150,000 and aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of policy rationales, the design of appropriate policy instruments as well as their effectiveness and efficiency.

The awarded project, a collaborative effort with Professor Michael Schroder, Dr Andreas Hoepner and Professor Bert Scholtens, is an international investigation of the effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on the cost of corporate loans. “As our work on this project falls in the intersection between business and society, it meets the overall objectives of the SEEK grant perfectly which made the committee very keen to invest in the research” said Dr Oikonomou.

The second success of 2012 for Dr Oikonomou is the awarding, in the previous month, of his thesis, ‘Empirical Investigations of the Relationship between Corporate Social and Financial Performance’ with the Best Thesis in Finance and Sustainability European Research Award for 2012. This award is administered by the French Social Investment Forum and the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and is worth €5,000.

The PRI is a network of international investors working together to put the six Principles for Responsible Investment (link to the principles) into practice. Their interest in Dr Oikonomou's thesis is a wonderful testament to the work he has done and demonstrates the potential for his research to develop into practical financial applications across institutions in Europe and further afield.

Dr Oikonomou was presented with his award at a ceremony in Paris in September. The event was covered by a variety of media including renowned French newspaper Le Monde for which Dr Oikonomou gave an interview.

Published 9 October 2012
Topics:
Press releases Research news

You might also like

ICMA Centre Research looks at whether banks could survive a new Great Depression

18 March 2010
A newly issued ICMA Centre discussion paper looks into the recent financial crisis and into whether banks could survive a new Great Depression. Simone Varotto, Teaching Fellow at the ICMA Centre, investigates whether banks complying with current and proposed bank capital regulation would set aside enough capital reserves to survive a Great Depression scenario, the severe worldwide economic downturn that occured in the 1930s.

Flexible working and the four-day working week

12 July 2019
Four better or four worse. In the City AM, Dr Miriam Marra shares her thoughts on having four generations in the workplace and the four-day working week.
Business News Research news

Medieval Foreign Exchange

23 January 2012
Financial experts from the University of Reading's ICMA Centre are to investigate medieval foreign exchange. The University has recently won a Research Project Grant worth almost £200,000 from the Leverhulme Trust.[1] The research team, comprising Professors Adrian Bell and Chris Brooks, and Dr Tony Moore, will examine in detail the workings of the markets for foreign currency trade in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Press releases Research news