The FINANCIAL -- Manchester Business School has secured a €3.7 million EU grant to bring together for the first time the world's leading financial risk experts and practitioners - with the aim of setting best practice to safeguard against future global financial meltdown.

A two-day financial risk conference - taking place Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 November 2009, in Manchester - will launch a four-year research project funded by the grant. The conference has attracted speakers of the highest calibre, from around the world, including Nobel laureate Professor Joe Stiglitz (right), Rene Poisson, managing director, JP Morgan and Christian Bluhm, managing director, Credit Suisse.

Professor Ser Huang Poon, financial risk expert at Manchester Business School, explains:

"The importance of risk management and risk reporting has experienced a paradigm shift in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The conference will give practitioners access to the latest original thinking in this area and the opportunity to discuss the real issues they are facing with the leading experts from the private and public sectors and academic thinkers who are shaping policy.

"Importantly the conference is the start of a four-year Marie Curie Initial Training Network that will train the next generation of financial risk experts and generate an unprecedented bank of knowledge that can be applied to benefit the global financial industry."

The conference is aimed at senior level executives responsible for setting and managing risk level in their firms. By attending the conference delegates will:

Understand state-of-the-art risk management techniques and how they can be best applied to their businesses
Be able to identify the pitfalls in current practice

Understand the implications of new financial risk policy changes, introduced in response to the global financial crisis, and how it will affect their businesses

Gain a fresh insight into risk management and risk reporting issues, specifically related to regulation and banking practices

Nick Sharp, risk analytics expert at RiskMetrics and research partner, said:

"This is a unique opportunity to hear from world renowned speakers from 20 top class universities and major industry players from seven European countries discussing current and future research agendas, in the aftermath of the subprime crisis.

"We are in full support of the wider research project behind the conference and have involvement in eight research projects - including examining counterparty risk, enhancing the calculation of value at risk for complex derivative, advances in portfolio optimisation and investigating the impact of macroeconomic risk factors on market returns. These are all areas in which we have an active interest and are hoping to benefit directly from the research carried out during the Marie Curie project."

Related Stories

• New Project Will Strengthen Voices from the Developing World in Support for Family Planning
• LSE academic awarded prestigious Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing
• Judge Business School: Academic challenges advice commonly given by business school gurus