Institute of Finance & Technology PHD

The world of finance is changing. New technologies are disrupting the way we do business. Innovative, creative and original approaches are required to stay ahead of the curve. UCL Institute of Finance & Technology was established to respond to these challenges. We pioneer true collaboration, bringing together the greatest minds from industry and academia to teach, research, and innovate together under one roof.

IFT is home to three taught Master's programmes and a PhD. We have a substantial research portfolio in digital finance and alternative investment and all our students can benefit from extensive links to world leading industry in London and internationally, state-of-the-art facilities at UCL and our esteemed teaching staff who are experts in their fields.

The IFT is home to a growing community of PhD researchers. Supervised by our academic and industrial professors, our PhD researchers are encouraged to take a very interdisciplinary approach to their projects, which tend to focus on finance, financial technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning. They take advantage of our inclusive and collaborative research environment led by our Director of Research.

For more information about the IFT click here

Superpowers

Financial Technology
Research

Keywords

Financial Technology
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Research

Francesca Romana Medda, FICE

Professor of Applied Economics and Finance

Francesca Medda is Professor of Applied Economics and Finance at the University College London (UCL). She is the Founder and Director of the UCL Institute of Finance & Technology. From 2020, Medda has coordinated the digital strategy in the Italian Financial Conduct and Supervisory Authority (Consob). In Consob she led three main projects on the digitalisation of supervisory activities. She also coordinated the group dedicated to the Consob regulatory sandbox and is a member of the Italian Fintech Committee. Her research focuses mainly on innovative finance and technology, sustainable finance, and impact investments. Her work is published in leading academic and practitioner journals. Since 2012 she has served as economic adviser to the UK Ministry of Environment and Agriculture (Defra) and the UK Ministry of Finance (HM Treasury). Since 2016 Medda has been Vice-President of the UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. She has worked actively with the private and public sector, including The European Investment Bank, The World Bank, UNESCO, and UN Habitat. Professor Medda holds several research grants of more than £15m, two of which pertain to the application of complexity analysis in the real world. In 2023, she is on the Standout 45 Women in Fintech, for making a real and lasting impact in FinTech, over and above her day-to-day role.

Testimonials

"IFT completely supports my research direction and the ideas I have, no matter how early stage or advanced. My supervisors make me feel we are really a team - it's a very friendly atmosphere, with hard working and self-disciplined students who achieve great things. "Zihao Liu, Phd Student

Advantages

Sponsor a PHD student

If you would like one of our students to apply their learning in the real world, why not sponsor a PHD. Sponsorship costs £20k and the IP will be yours.

Banking and Digital Finance Msc

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