Lecturer receives promotion, award and research project grant

The ICMA Centre's Dr Marcel Prokopczuk has much to celebrate this week. Dr Prokopczuk who joined the Centre in 2009, received a promotion on the 1st of July to Senior Lecturer and yesterday was awarded a University Teaching and Learning prize as well as being awarded a British Academy research project grant.

The Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning awards recognise and reward individuals who have made an exceptional, ongoing contribution to teaching and learning, either through direct interactions with students, their support of staff within the School/section, or their contributions to a Faculty, Directorate or University initiative. Only eight of these are prestigious £1,000 awards are conferred each year.

In addition to the promotion and award Marcel has also been awarded (with co-applicant Professor Chris Brooks) a research project grant by the British Academy under their "Small Grant Scheme". The title of the project is "Risk Premia in Commodity Markets" (project abstract appears below).

Professor Charles Sutcliffe, Head of School commented:

"This is excellent news both for Marcel and for the Centre. It is very well deserved and recognizes the significant contribution Marcel has made to the Centre since his appointment in 2009."

Project Abstract: Commodity derivatives markets serve important economic functions in terms of risk management and long term investment strategies. However, compared to equity and fixed income markets, commodity linked securities have received only little academic attention and are thus a relatively unknown asset class. Most importantly, the existence and nature of risk premia in this market have, so far, not been studied satisfactorily. In this project, we will therefore address the following questions: (i) Are risk premia in different commodity markets positive or negative? (ii) Which economic factors determine the variation of risk premia cross-sectionally and over time? (iii) Are there risk premia for volatility and jump risk? The answers to these questions will substantially improve our understanding of commodity derivatives markets. This knowledge will help long-term investors, such as pension funds, to optimise their investment decisions and also manufacturing companies to improve their risk management strategies.