Funding successes for global research
4 May 2018
Researchers from Cardiff University are set to address global challenges facing healthcare services, education and high technology supply chains after securing funding from UK Research and Innovation.
£60,000 Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) awards secured by Professors Jonathan Morris, Aris Syntetos and Dr Bahman Rostami-Tabar from Cardiff Business School will get three projects underway in India and Tunisia.
Economic and social upgrading
Professor Morris will examine the existing infrastructures for the production, manufacture and supply of high technologies in India.
Collaborating with Professor Dev Nathan from the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, Professor Morris will carry out a series of interviews with firms in Bangalore to understand the engineering, development and consulting contexts in high technology across the rapidly developing nation.
He said: “Analysis of these types global commodity chains is traditionally associated with the clothing sector and, by association, with low-income work and career pathways...”
“What I’m hoping to illustrate, through a series of case studies, is the economic and social upgrading that’s underway in developing countries such as India, and Bangladesh, South-East Asia and Africa too, as a result of the skilled employment demands of high technology commodity chains.”
Forecasting for social good
Professor Aris Syntetos and Dr Bahman Rostami-Tabar will also be working in India thanks to the money secured through GCRF.
Drawing together 30 participants from five different sectors, including humanitarian and disaster relief operations, charity and social services, education, healthcare and government and policy-makers, Professor Syntetos will lead a 3-day workshop to demonstrate the importance of forecasting for social good.
Professor Syntetos Said: “By bringing together academics and practitioners with social missions from across India we will be able to identify some of the challenges faced in India...”
“What the workshop will then enable us to do is set an agenda for research collaboration to address these. Of course, one solution might be forecasting. And so, we will be training participants to use forecasting models and data analytics using ‘R’.”
Operations mapping
In addition to supporting Professor Syntetos deliver the forecasting workshop in India, Dr Bahman Rostami-Tabar is leading another project which completes the trio of successful GCRF awardees.
In collaboration with NHS Wales and Charles Nicolle Hospital in Tunis, Dr Rostami-Tabar will assess flow management practices for Accident and Emergency and Medical Admissions Services in Tunisia.
He said: “By mapping the operational flow of products, information, finance, patients and human resources I want to identify areas for improvement...”
“Pairing this data with expertise from NHS Wales, will then allow me to identify best practice alternatives for implementation in hospitals in developing nations such as Tunisia.”
Dr Rostami-Tabar latest project is part of a series aligned with the School’s public value mission and enabled by internal and International Institute of Forecasters funding.
GCRF is a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK Government in late 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries.
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Professor of Organisational Analysis
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Distinguished Research Professor, DSV Chair
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Professor Bahman Rostami-Tabar
Professor of Data-Driven Decision Science
