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The Institute of Global Finance and Development (IGFD) has been established at Lancashire Business School to serve as an international centre of excellence for research on finance and development, both in developed and developing economies. The Institute is interdisciplinary and it coordinates the research interests of academics in economics, finance, accountancy, development studies, and business and management studies.
The main goals of the Institute are to advance better understanding of challenges to development and growth, as well as to frame solutions in relation to the financial sector. The role of finance in development has become a major topic for research and debate in recent years, particularly in the context of developing appropriate finance related polices for economic growth and poverty reduction. One of the main areas of research focus of IGDF is microfinance, which is based on the concept that poor households are affected by the lack of access to adequate provision of financial services.
The other main areas of research include: access to finance, savings, micro insurance, investment flows, financial institutions, cultural and behavioural aspects of finance, regulation and corporate governance, entrepreneurship and quantitative economics and finance.
In 2010, the IGDF organised an international conference on “Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Interventions: Global Perspectives”. Making finance accessible and providing appropriate business training to entrepreneurs are the core interventions for developing and sustaining a pro-entrepreneur business model. The conference examined the nature of these interventions based on country and regional experiences, with presentations of key findings from the British Council - DelPHI funded project on ‘Women entrepreneurs and risk coping mechanisms’ in India, Ghana and Tanzania. In 2011, the IGDF organised an international conference on “Financial Inclusion and Economic Growth - Theory and Evidence” in collaboration with Chandragupt Institute of Management (CIMP) in Patna, India. In 2012, the members of the institute have been awarded an ESRC grant to study on “Microfoundations of Access to Finance: Demand-side Perspectives in South Africa”.
As part of this IGFD organised a series of seminars with international speakers in the University. Following this, a two day high level policy workshop on African Development Finance was organised at the University Of Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa. In 2014, IGFD will be organising a panel session on financial inclusion jointly with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India in the 9TH Annual International Conference on Public Policy and Management at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-B), Bangalore, India. Our work is both foundational, to improve the research methodologies, and has huge practical implications. Research activities include grant/collaborative partnerships, consultancies, official reports and professional exchange. Among many, the members of the institute have a range of collaborations with key funding sources such as the ESRC, the British Council, the British Academy and the EU. The policy dimension of our research has been employed extensively by international organisations and national governments.