KBS Sponsors Attend the 12th Annual IAFDS

On the 9-12 June, 2019 KBS acted as a sponsor for the 12th Annual International Accounting and Finance Doctoral Symposium (IAFDS) symposium held at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

The IAFDS focuses on developing the research strengths and skills of doctoral students specialising in accounting, finance and banking. It offers an excellent opportunity for PhD students to present their work to an international audience who provide detailed feedback. Candidates also benefit an excellent networking experience and a one-on-one discussion with an experienced academic about their paper.

The Kent Business School (KBS) sponsorship initiative was led by Dr Timothy King, who has been a  regular participant (as faculty) and part of the IAFDS network for a number of years, having first attended the event as a final year PhD student when he was awarded the best paper prize.

In addition to Dr King, also representing KBS were Dr Jaideep Oberoi and Dr Ortenca Kume, who both acted as faculty discussants to two PhD students drawn from leading international universities.

Dr Oberoi commented that “the quality of the conference was exceptionally good, with several papers having the potential to be published in highly regarded journals”. Moreover, “the conference offers excellent opportunities for promising PhD candidates to receive constructive feedback on their research and to network with other PhD students as well as faculty from around the world.”

As part of the sponsorship initiative, KBS was able to take three PhD students, Mattia Bevilacqua, Davide Vioto and Jason Kynigakis to the event who all felt that they had benefited immensely from the experience.

Mattia Bevilacqua “strongly recommends PhD students to participate in the next IAFDS to have the chance to see their paper enriched with suggestions and new ideas”. In addition, IAFDS provides the opportunity “to build long-term connections with well-known international faculty members.”

Davide Vioto presented his 3rd PhD paper to academics and PhD students from leading universities around the globe and received insightful comments about his research methodology in a detailed one-on-one discussion from Allan Hodgson, a top professor in Accounting and Finance at the University of Queensland.

Jason Kynigakis commented that “the IAFDS differentiated from other conferences as it was student-centric”. In addition to presenting their own work, participants were assigned a paper of another student, which “was an interesting exercise that introduced the student discussant to a different area of finance, whilst offering potentially useful feedback to the student.”

KBS looks forward to a long and continuous sponsorship association with IAFDS and to returning in June 2020.

Learn more about studying Accounting and Finance PhD programmes at KBS

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