PROFESSOR John Finch has been named the new head of the University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School after filling the post on an interim basis since January.

Professor Finch, who joined the university in 2012 from Strathclyde Business School, where he was vice-dean, has succeeded Professor Jim Love, who stood down at the start of this year.

With a specific interest in how the research principles from sociology, economics, science and technology can inform the understanding of how markets evolve over time, Professor Finch said one of his priorities as head of the business school will be to foster greater collaboration on research projects.

“If you look at the way the funding environment is going there are fewer grants available but these are also larger grants,” he said.

“That means we have to do our research on a larger scale so rather than doing it in ones or twos there will be three, four or five people [working on a single project] and some will be multi-disciplinary.”

Professor Finch added that it is likely this will lead to greater collaboration between the business school and financial institutions, which could come on board as both financial backers and collaborators on research projects.

How to fund projects is something that could come into sharper focus during Professor Finch’s four-year term, with the question of whether UK institutions will continue to receive European funding post-Brexit a cause for concern.

“European funding is an area of great uncertainty and it will be a terrible shame if we lose projects [after Brexit],” he said.

Another area of focus will be to further develop the internationalisation of the business school, both in terms of attracting foreign students and potentially introducing distance learning.