UKFin+

UKFin+ is a “network plus”, with a mission to bridge the gap that currently exists between research in universities and the needs of the financial services industry, its consumers and the regulator.

Real-life challenges in financial services are complex, combining responding to innovation in technology with business ethics, environmental considerations and scarcity in the talent pipeline. This presents the financial services sector with wicked problems, which the industry cannot ignore, requiring practitioners and researchers from across disciplines to come together. UKFin+ aims to address wicked problems in financial services that are associated with innovation in technology, mathematics and sciences.

Central to UKFin+ is its ‘commissioning framework’, which provides the funding mechanisms for five types of collaborative projects between academia and partners: pilot project funding which aims to explore technological, mathematical and scientific solutions for real-life challenges in financial services; larger multi-disciplinary feasibility projects, which may build on the seed projects, and expand to consider ‘wicked’ multi-disciplinary research problems; agile projects which can be of any type e.g. horizon scanning, population survey, a software prototype or a machine learning application; impact projects to take any of the research projects further e.g., to influence policymakers, or initiate commercialisation and education/engagement projects support the growth of the financial services talent pool.

UKFin+ is led by the University of Birmingham, with Design Informatics providing specific expertise around the adoption of people-centered and co-creative approaches within industry and in fintech research.

https://ukfin.network/