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CQRF - Green finance seedcorn funding call

Published on 13 May 2021

The Centre for Qualitative Research in Finance (CQRF), is offering seedcorn funding of up to £1000 to support research

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To mark the upcoming COP26 summit in Glasgow in November 2021, the Centre for Qualitative Research in Finance (CQRF), housed in the University of Dundee Business School, is offering seedcorn funding of up to £1000 to support exploratory qualitative research in the 'Green Finance' area.

The green finance research agenda is regularly contextualised in terms of complex interacting financial systems involving financial firms, financial markets, financial transactions and many regulatory and stakeholder actors. These in turn interact with many other constituents of the real economy and the rapidly changing global climate system. Given that capital allocation and investment through the financial system aimed at environmental protection and building of a green infrastructure is at the heart of its remit, it is not surprising that much of the research to date on green finance has been quantitatively focused.

The aim of the CQRF’s Green Finance initiative is to explore the potential of qualitative research methodology to improve understanding of the ways in which the financial world and its key components can 'go green'. In so doing, consideration will be given to the transformative potential of finance to drive changes in the real economy such that challenging GHG emissions targets and other indicators of environmental performance are met.

The qualitative green finance research agenda is an example of debate around the design of financial systems that reflect a wider public purpose. These discussions typically incorporate the greening of financial transactions, markets and financial firms, including their many interactions. It complements an emerging stream of research and thought (e.g. Davis et al, 2016; Pitt-Watson, 2018; Kay, 2015, 2018; Mayer 2018) that challenges the current social contract between financial firms and civil society, as well as being part of a larger debate about the future direction of capitalism (Collier, 2018; Milanovic, 2018; Brydon Report, 2020).

Applications are encouraged that reflect this agenda in the context of, inter alia, Green Transactions (e.g. loans, bonds, index portfolios), Green Financial Firms (e.g. banks, insurance, fund managers),  and Green Financial Markets (e.g. green bonds, securitised green loans and green crowdfunding processes).

All applications will be fully considered by the Centre's scientific committee and decisions made by the end of October 2021.

Letters of application should be sent by 31 August 2021

Professor Bruce Burton,

Director of the Centre for Qualitative Research in Finance,

Email application to: bmburton@dundee.ac.uk

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