InSPiR2eS Network
Vision of Success
- New knowledge that is reliable, useful & unbiased
- Productive research collaboration & partnerships – locally, regionally & globally
- A collective sense of purpose and achievement towards the whole research process
Network Structure
Prof Robert Faff
Founder & President
Professorial Fellow at Bond University and Emeritus Professor of Finance at the UQ Business School. He is currently Vice-President of EIASM and served as BARDsNet Chair, 2016-2017. He has an international reputation in empirical finance research: securing 14 Australian Research Council grants (funding exceeding $4 million); over 340 refereed journal publications – 42x A* (ABDC); career citations over 17,400 (Google Scholar); and a h-index of 65. His particular passion is nurturing the career trajectories of early career researchers, supervising over 50 PhD students across is 40-year academic career.
Robert’s signature focus is “Pitching Research” [https://ssrn.com/abstract=2462059], with worldwide penetration signalled by: (a) over 18,500 SSRN downloads; (b) over 300 pitching talks/events; (c) at 37 Australian universities; and (d) spanning 54 different countries. In addition, Robert is Editor-in- Chief of Pacific-Basin Finance Journal; formerly: Editor of Accounting and Finance (2002-2011) and Associate Editor of several other leading journals including Abacus and Australian Journal of Management.
Dr David Mathuva
VP – Africa
Senior Lecturer and Director, Undergraduate Programmes at Strathmore University Business School (SBS), Kenya. David doubles as the Academic Director in the MSc. in Development Finance at SBS, and has proven experience in teaching and training at both professional, academic, and executive (corporate) level. He has published 15 research articles in highly reputable journals. His areas of interest include the linkage between Accounting and Financial Markets on matters around corporate reporting, corporate finance, risk management and audit.
David developed special interest in the Pitching Research tool way back in 2014 during its inception and has managed to publish 5 quality articles guided by the tool. David has showcased the importance of the Pitching Research tool in 1 PhD forum and 2 pre- doctoral workshops. He has applied the tool when teaching over 100 master-level students and continues to use the tool in his teaching, assessment, and research-related engagements. David hopes to organise symposiums and competitions around Pitching Research in future.
Dr Marcio Machado
VP – South America
Associate Professor of Finance at the Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil. His first contact with the pitching research framework was in 2015, when he was a visiting professor at UQ, supervised by the Professor Robert Faff. Upon returning to Brazil, Marcio adopted the pitching template in his research process subject, as well as in his supervision activities of master’s and doctoral students, whilst propagating the use of the pitching template to other universities in Brazil. His next efforts are focused on the expanded propagation of the pitching tool in Brazil and engaging new researchers.
Marcio highlights that the pitching template provides a unique efficiency in directing new research proposals, as well as in the analysis of their relevance. As well as focusing his next efforts are focused on the expanded propagation of the pitching tool in Brazil (South America), Marcio is has a special focus on the engagement of new researchers for the International Society of Pitching Research for Responsible Science.
Dr Charlie Cai
VP – Europe
Professor of Finance at Liverpool University Management School, UK. Charlie’s recent research focuses are in the areas of factor investing, ESG reporting and investing, and the impact of technology on financial markets (issues such as machine learning and crowdfunding). Charlie has worked with Robert Faff and colleagues on research development through the International Accounting and Finance Doctoral Symposium (IAFDS) for more than 10 years. The core value of responsible research has been the ethos guiding the development of the IAFDS community.
The effective use of Robert’s pitching template for communicating and understanding research has been championed through IAFDS and Charlie’s research engagements with colleagues and students internationally.
Mr Imran Qadir
VP – Asia
Lecturer in Department of Management Sciences, The University of Haripur (UoH), Pakistan. He is acting as a Deputy Director at the Office of Research, Innovation & commercialization. He has been the driving force for the Pitching Research initiative in Pakistan. He organized the first-ever webinar by Prof. Robert Faff at UoH, Pakistan. With his efforts, Pitching Research was adopted as an official format for MPhil and PhD synopsis at UoH. To educate the research community of Pakistan, Imran coordinated with Prof. Faff and Dr. Ihitisham Malik (our VP competitions) to organize the first-ever national-level pitching research competition.
The event ‘All Pakistan Pitching Research Competition (APPRC) 2017-18’ was a huge success with more than 100 novice researchers competing to have the highest ranked pitch and prize from all over Pakistan. Imran also organized a national-level ‘Train the Trainers’ workshop delivered by Prof. Faff. Moreover, Imran organized the closing ceremony of APPRC 2017-18 at Higher Education Commission, Islamabad in which Prof. Faff was the Guest of Honour. Mr. Imran Qadir aims to play a vital role in the development of our research network in Asia.
Dr Isaac Otchere
VP – North America
Professor of Finance, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Canada. He is also a Resource Person for the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), a Fellow of the Carnegie African Diaspora Program, serves on the editorial boards of many Finance, Economic, and International Business journals, and maintains his professional designation as a Chartered Accountant. Dr. Otchere is an academic visionary with a passion for continual learning who frequently branches outside of his comfort zone to explore topical issues. Although an expert in finance, his research program consists of a diverse and ever-maturing range of topics.
His research has an overarching construct of elucidating the moderating factors that affect corporate performance. In fact, much of his research is cutting edge and has significant policy and social implications. Dr. Otchere is not only one of the top researchers at Sprott with an extensive list of publications in high-ranking finance journals, numerous conference presentations, and a host of research awards, but he is also one of the most recognized and awarded professors in the Sprott School of Business for his teaching excellence and student mentoring. Moreover, he has been teaching around the world, gaining international exposure and bringing this wisdom and worldly acumen into his research and his teaching at Sprott.
Dr Millicent Chang
VP – Australasia
Professor in the School of Business at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She teaches at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in corporate finance and incorporates the Pitch Template in her research classes. Millicent is actively involved in the supervision of PhD students. Her research spans the accounting and finance areas and her current interests include corporate disclosure, insider trading, environmental finance and accounting in extractive industries. She is a Senior Editor at Global Finance Journal and an Editor at Accounting & Finance, and her work has appeared in Journal of Corporate Finance, and many others.
Other features of her work include: the Journal of Business Ethics, Pacific Basin Finance Journal, and Accounting & Finance. She is a Senior Editor at Global Finance Journal and an Editor at Accounting & Finance.
Dr Sumit Lodhia
VP – Qualitative Research
Professor of Accounting at the University of South Australia (UniSA) Business School where he leads research focused on sustainability accounting, reporting, and governance. He was presented with the annual Australasian – Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting (A-CSEAR) Hall of Fame Award for 2017 for his leadership and a sustained contribution to research on sustainability accounting and reporting. He has published 70+ articles in a range of prestigious refereed journals, authored several research reports and a book. He is the co-editor of Accounting Forum, associate editor of Meditari Accountancy research and a member of the Editorial Board of several international journals.
Sumit is the author of the “Qualitative Pitch”, a research template for pitching qualitative research ideas. This work has been published in Accounting and Finance and applies Professor Robert Faff’s pitching template to qualitative research. Both the original pitch template (Faff) and the qualitative pitch are used for AFAANZ grant submissions. Both these authors have combined to produce an article on the effectiveness of research templates, published in Accounting and Finance. Prof. Sumit intends to use his role as Vice- President Qualitative Research to promote the use of pitching templates for qualitative research.
Dr Ellie Chapple
VP – Diversity
Professor of Accounting at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She has over 30 years’ experience as a teaching and research academic in Australian business and law schools, primarily focussing on corporate regulation as it applies to accounting students and commercial transactions. She is active in several academic professional associations including the Society of Corporate Law Researchers, the Financial Research Network, the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand and the European Accounting Association. She was the editor of the Accounting Research Journal from 2014 – 2021 and currently deputy editor in chief of Accounting & Finance.
Her professional qualifications include a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and she is admitted as a legal practitioner of the Supreme Court of Queensland. She is delighted to be part of the InSPiR2eS network, as VP – diversity. She would like to issue a gentle challenge to you to convince her that this portfolio is not needed. As much as we value ourselves as a network of dedicated, professional researchers who rely on objective data, we can still be subject to non-random sampling bias. In colloquial terms, we might call that a blindspot: type 1 thinking, assumptions, stereotypes, we are all subject to unconscious bias when filtering all the information available to us when making decisions. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/about-us/blind- spots.html. She thanks Professor Faff for being open to this discussion and inviting her to join the network in the diversity portfolio.
Dr Sebastian Hoffmann
VP – Inter-Disciplinary Research
Co-Director of the Culture, Accounting and Society Research Network at the University of Edinburgh Business School (UK), and a Research Professor of Accounting at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management (Germany). He currently serves as Vice President Communications on the Executive Committee of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research (IAAER), and maintains an interdisciplinary research agenda in Accounting with particular emphases on lobbying and accounting standard setting, accounting regulation and its implementation, and accounting in historical contexts.
His research is published in leading international journals, such as Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Business History Review, Accounting and Business Research and Critical Perspectives on Accounting. He was awarded the 2020 Robert Gibson Manuscript Award for the most significant contribution to the accounting history literature. Within InSPiR2eS Sebastian promotes pitching research and practices of responsible science in interdisciplinary research settings.
Dr Ihtisham Malik
Joint VP – Competitions
Lecturer in Finance at the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. He has recently been seconded to UQ Business School executive education where he is the Academic Lead for the joint public sector finance program with the Queensland Treasury Corporation. Ihtisham earned his PhD from the UQ in 2020 and was a recipient of the highly competitive International Post-graduate Research Scholarship and UQ Centennial Scholarship. His research interests include (but are not limited to) financial markets, climate-change-induced risks & energy economics. Ihtisham has published scholarly work in several highly ranked academic journals e.g., Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Accounting and Finance
In his role as VP Competitions, Ihtisham has been playing a key role in expanding the Pitching Research competition internationally. He was the key person (with support from Mr. Imran Qadir, VP Asia) in arranging the first- ever Pitching Research competition outside the geographic boundaries of Australia. This initiative – the All Pakistan Pitching Research Competition (APPRC) 2017-2018 – was a collaboration between UQ, Australia and the University of Haripur, Pakistan; in which novice researchers from around 20 universities participated. More than 100 entries were received from every field of study from business to medicine and from agriculture to space technology and evaluators from across the world assessed the entries. Notably, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (key research funding body) not only marketed the competition but also hosted the closing ceremony of the competition – thereby, underscoring the impact Pitching Research has had on the higher education sector of Pakistan. Ihtisham is still working with various international counterparts and is very keen to facilitate further such competitions in the near future.
Dr Syed Shams
Joint VP – Competitions
Senior Lecturer in Finance and Associate Head, Learning Teaching and Student Success in the School of Business at University of Southern Queensland (USQ). He has published 28 research articles in a range of highly respected journals and a book chapter. His publications have appeared in reputable journals including in the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Business Research, Australian Journal of Management, and Pacific-Basin Finance Journal. His broad research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate sustainability, and corporate disclosure. He is actively involved in the supervision of PhD students, currently supervising 8 postgraduate research students.
He is the successful recipient of 3 Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Mid-career research grants using Professor Robert Faff’s pitching template. Dr Shams promotes the use of pitching templates for quantitative finance and accounting research. His current strategy is engaging with academic institutions and expanding the propagation of the pitching tool in Southeast Asian region.
Dr Lien Duong
VP – Membership
Senior Lecturer at School of Accounting, Economics and Finance (Curtin University, Australia). Lien has experience of using the pitch template through AFAANZ research grants, Shark Tank presentations and replication publications in Accounting & Finance, Accounting Research Journal. She was the Guest Editor for the special issue “Pitching Research Letters: AFAANZ Shark Tank 2020” for the Accounting Research Journal in 2020. Her research focuses on mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, corporate governance, financial reporting quality and statistical modelling. Her research has been published in international journals and disseminated through various media outlets.
She has successfully supervised several Master and PhD students to completion and received awards for her excellence in teaching and research. Prior to her academic career, Lien worked in a number of roles in the accounting and finance industry such as tax accountant, management accountant, and business analyst.
Dr Tom Smith
VP – Tools
Professor of Finance at Macquarie University, Australia. He is one of the leading finance academics in Australia. Tom’s research is in Environmental Finance, Asset Pricing Theory and Tests; Design of Markets – Market Microstructure; and Derivatives. Tom has supervised over 50 PhD students to completion and his PhD students have over 50 tier 1 papers in their own names. Tom has a vocation to teach people how to do research and over the last 30 plus years has taught a number of tool-based subjects including Theory, Empirical and Research Methodologies. Tom teaches all the research tools: qualitative, systematic literature reviews, surveys, and experiments.
The approach is to give the state of the art, leading exemplars, what the Editors are looking for and where to from here. For the most up to date information on methods, please check: https://bit.ly/3gdxnxH
Dr Reza Monem
VP – Research Training
Professor of Accounting at Griffith University, Australia. His research work has been featured in several newspapers and magazines, including The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Canberra Times, Brisbane Times, and Corporate Risk & Insurance Magazine. Professor Monem has appeared in television and print media commenting on accounting-related topics. In 2016, he won the Griffith Business School Research Excellence Award. Professor Monem has supervised eight PhD theses to completion with seven as the principal supervisor. He is also active as an external PhD thesis examiner, examining several theses completed at Australian and overseas universities.
Dr Luisa Unda
VP – Novice Researchers
Assistant Professor at the Mannheim Business School, Germany and she also holds a position as Adjunct Lecturer at Monash University, Australia. Luisa’s experience with pitching research started when she was a PhD student at La Trobe University. Luisa has participated in pitching research competitions with successful outcomes. For instance, she was the winner of the 2014 La Trobe Pitching Research Competition and the runner-up of the 2015 Centre for International Financial Regulation (CIFR) Pitching Research Symposium. Luisa has also a research publication on Accounting & Finance journal related to a pitch on her PhD thesis topic.
In her role as VP – Novice Researchers, Luisa aims to support the development and engagement of PhD students and early career researchers, in relation to pitching research.
Dr Searat Ali
VP – Communications
Lecturer in Finance and Academic Director of the Financial Planning discipline in the School of Business at the University of Wollongong (UOW), Australia. Searat is an ECR with research expertise in the areas of corporate finance, corporate governance, and capital markets. With 16 peer-reviewed papers, 14 are ABDC-ranked journals including 1x A*, 9x A. Searat is also a recipient of the Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning (OCTAL) award in 2021. It was 2015 when Searat’s pitching research journey started with his participation in SIRCA Pitching Research Symposium, going on to become a strong advocate of the template to the wider academic community.
He has published three Pitch Research Letters, with one receiving the best paper award from JAMIS. Five of his research papers using the pitch template have been published in A-ranked journals, with one receiving the best paper award from AFAANZ. In 2016, Searat was actively involved in organizing the historic webinar (via zoom) at Imperial College of Business Studies and the University of Haripur, Pakistan. In a recent webinar (March, 2021) on Reverse-engineered Pitching jointly delivered with Professor Robert Faff across three university including UQ, UOW, Bond, Searat showcased his systematic reflections on six years of pitching research experience, which can be accessed here. Searat aims to play a vital role in the communication of our research activities across the globe through quarterly e-Newsletter.
Dr Marvin Wee
VP – Shark Tanks
Associate Professor in the Research School of Accounting at the Australian National University. He has served on the Accounting and Financed Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) board since 2017 and is the co-director of the Doctoral Symposium in 2020 and 2021. He is also Deputy Editor-in-Chief of AFAANZ’s journal, Accounting & Finance. Marvin was the guest editor of the special issue at Pacific Basin Finance Journal celebrating the 50-year legacy of Ball and Brown (1968). This involved using an experiment in which several teams of researchers follow a registration-based editorial process, illustrating one fruitful avenue for fostering responsible research into the future.
Marvin has been an active participant of prior research pitching events and was the convener of the 2019 and 2020 AFAANZ Finance Special Interest Group Shark Tank events.
Dr Kathy Walsh
VP – Engagement & Impact
Dr Kathy Walsh is a Professor of Finance at UTS since July 2017. She has a research focus on capital markets. She has been published internationally and has attracted substantial research grant funding. Her current research is on Chinese capital markets with a particular focus on the internationalisation of the Renminbi. Kathy has over 20 years’ experience as an academic with prior positions at ANU, University of NSW and Sydney University. She holds a PhD in finance from the Australian Graduate School of Management and a first class Honours Degree in Finance. Prior to her academic career Kathy worked for 10 years in the Insurance sector. Kathy has been heavily involved in FIRN (Finance Research Network), culminating in her role as Director in recent years.
She has also been a staunch advocate of gender equality in the finance sector and academe. In terms of the Pitching Research framework, Kathy has had significant experience especially in the “Pitching Research for Engagement and Impact”, second generation tool. She has collaborated on several pitching-related publications and most recently: Faff, R., Kastelle, T., Axelsen, M., Brosnan, M., Michalak, R. and Walsh, K., (2020), “Pitching Research for Engagement and Impact A Simple Tool and Illustrative Examples“, Accounting & Finance, forthcoming.
VP – eHosting (Grants/Competitions)
VP – Replications
VP – Research Mentoring
VP – Data
Joint-VP - Competitions
VP - Indigenous Research Training
VP - Membership, China
VP - Finance SIG
VP - Tourism & Transportation SIG
VP - Entrepreneurship SIG
VP – Marketing Strategy
VP – Communications (Soc. Media)
VP – Technical Innovation
VP – Systematic Reviews
VP - Research Translation
- Dr Tim Pullen
VP - Impact Investing
VP - Network Pulse
VP - Teaching & Learning
VP - Course Materials
VP Role Vacancies
- VP - Pitch of the Week (PoW)
- VP - Idea
- VP - Web Development
- VP - Network Governance
- VP - E-Llibrary
InSPiR2eS News Updates
IC4RS in 2025…Three Big Things Planned
I am writing to briefly update you on some IC4RS planning for 2025 (& beyond) …which I hope that you will find inspiring! New Monthly IC4RS Research Training Webinar Series “Advancing Responsible Science: The IC4RS & InSPiR2eS Webinar Initiative” To improve active ongoing engagement within InSPiR2eS, the plan is to instigate a series of monthly research training webinars for the IC4RS community. Aimed at all researchers, regardless of experience, the
April 2023
IC4RS IGPRC2023 SSRN Papers InSPiR2eS Centre for Responsible Science (IC4RS) IC4RS was launched in March 2023 for the benefit of all InSPiR2eS members. IC4RS provides a virtual platform for like-minded researchers to promote and engage in the principles and practices of Responsible Science. The primary vision and goal of IC4RS is to meaningfully facilitate a conducive environment, motivations, and incentives for the next generation of researchers to deliver high quality
November 2022
Micro-Credential PBFJ Certified Novice Pitch Mentoring Initiative PBFJ Publication Initiative IGPRC2023 SSRN Paper “BE INSPIRED by InSPiR2eS!” … An update on the growing portfolio of active InSPiR2eS initiatives & partner collaborations BE INSPIRED (1): Pitching Research Matters Micro-credential Course (PRM MC) In May 2022 a Micro-credential course [MC] was launched through Bond University called “Pitching Research Matters” [PRM]. Here are a few details about this exciting addition to our network
June 2022
IGPRC Winners Grand Final Pitches & Reflections Outreach in Africa PRF Micro-Credential Announcing IGPRC 2022 Winner It gives us immense pleasure to have successfully concluded the first-ever InSPiR2eS Global Pitching Research Competition (IGPRC) with the grand final held on Friday, the 10th of June 2022. To advance the mission of InSPiR2eS, this was a fantastic showcasing event of the innovative research ideas from six emerging and novice researchers from six
News Flash – IGPRC 2022 Grand Final Event
IGPRC-22 Grand Final Event The IGPRC 2022 Grand Final Event will be held on Friday 10th June at 21:00 (GMT+10). You can attend the event via the zoom link below, but please RSPV your attendance by 9th June using the link below. Good luck to all the finalists, and we are looking forward to connecting with everyone next month! Friday 10th June 2022 21:00 (GMT+10) RSPV link (click here) EVENT
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