07 December, 2020, Bengaluru: Professor Prateek Raj, IIMB Young Faculty Research Chair and faculty of the Strategy area, has been awarded a grant for an ICSSR-ESRC-UKRI call for collaborative research on: ‘The future of UK-Indian trade and cross-border investment in a changing global environment’, as part of the ICSSR-ESRC-UKRI Bilateral Programme (Indian Council of Social Science Research-Economic and Social Research Council-UK Research and Innovation).
The grant under the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) project has been awarded in response to a proposal from Prof. Prateek Raj titled: ‘Enablers and Obstacles for UK-India Trade: Banks and Diasporas’, submitted in collaboration with UK based co-investigators at King’s College London (Prof. Sunil Kumar Mitra and Prof. Kamini Gupta). The venture will go a long way in showcasing deepening Research & Development into trade relations by UK and India academics, and will study how informal institutions such as diasporic social capital, and formal institutions such as banks influence trade between India and the UK. Prof. Rupa Chanda, RBI Chair in Economics, and faculty and Chair, Economics & Social Sciences area of IIMB, is a member of the advisory council for this project.
Joint statements by the finance ministers of UK and India also have lauded the research projects on the future of UK-India trade and investment in a changing global environment.
Prof. Prateek Raj’s study primarily focusses on how businesses and markets evolve(d) in history, and in developing countries. He is also a Junior Fellow at the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He earned his doctorate from University College London (UCL), where he continues to be an Honorary Research Associate. During his PhD, he was affiliated to the Center for Economic History and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University as a Visiting Predoctoral fellow and the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago as a Research Associate. Prior to his PhD, he earned his B Tech in Production and Industrial Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD). He worked as an operations consultant for clients in metals and mining industry, and has also taught operational research methods at the London School of Economics (LSE).