Dr Nikiforos Panourgias

Profile

Roles:

• Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Fintech
• Module organiser for BUSM218 Financial Technology, BUSM246 Practices and Organization in Accounting and Finance, and module co-leader for BUSM143 Research Methods in Accounting 
• Member of the Department of Accounting and Financial Management

Biography:

Dr. Panourgias joined the Department of Accounting and Finance of the School Of Business and Management in October 2022 as Senior Lecturer in Fintech. His research and teaching are in the area of the social studies of technologies relating to markets, finance, and accounting. Prior to joining QMUL, Dr. Panourgias was Associate Professor of Financial Markets Information Systems at the University of Leicester School of Business. He was also engaged as Senior Research Fellow (August 2020 – December 2022) on the Fintechnext project at University Collage Cork in Ireland. The project undertook research on technological innovation in financial services and contributed to the development of specific Fintech solutions in the areas of foreign exchange and emissions forecasting and trading. Before the University of Leicester, Dr. Panourgias was Assistant Professor at the Information Systems and Management Group of Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, having joined WBS as a post-doctoral researcher in September 2008 to work on an ESRC-funded project on interdisciplinary collaboration in the design and development of digital games. For his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science Dr. Panourgias studied the development of the Euroclear platform for the cross-border settlement of securities transactions.

Teaching

Dr. Panourgias approaches accounting and finance as complex and dynamic sociotechnical phenomena with his teaching focusing on the social structures, calculative practices, and technological organisation of these fields. Teaching is, therefore, informed by insights and approaches to the study of accounting and finance from science and technology studies, information systems, innovation studies, economic sociology, ethnography, and anthropology, with a strong focus on practice and the lived-experiences of accounting and finance.

Dr Panourgias is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Research

Research Interests:

Dr. Panourgias’ current research interests are in the areas of Fintech; the technological transformation of financial markets; and digital innovation. 

Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

• Dehghani, M. A., Karavidas, D., Panourgias, N. S., O'Reilly, P., Hutchinson, M., ‘Assessing the Quality of Financial Technology Patents Through the Development of a Patent Quality Index for Comparing Jurisdictions, Technical Domains, and Leading Organizations’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, (February 2023) [International Collaboration]
• Kowalski, L.; Green, W.; Lilley, S.; Panourgias, N. S. ‘Lackluster Adoption of Cryptocurrencies as a Consumer Payment Method in the United States—Hypothesis: Is This Independent Technology in Need of a Brand, and What Kind?’, Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 16(1), (December 2022) ) [International Collaboration]
• Henfridsson, O., Nandhakumar, J., Scarbrough, H., & Panourgias, N.S. ‘Recombination in the open-ended value landscape of digital innovation’, Information and Organization, 28(2), 89-100, (June 2018).
• Panourgias, N.S., ‘Capital markets integration: A sociotechnical study of the development of a cross-border securities settlement system’. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 99, pp.317-338,(November 2015)
• Scarbrough, H., Panourgias, N. S. and Nandhakumar, J. ‘Developing a Relational View of the Organizing Role of Objects: A study of the innovation process in computer games’. Organization Studies.(January 2015)
• Panourgias, N.S., Nandhakumar, J., and Scarbrough H., “Entanglements of creative agency and digital technology: a sociomaterial study of computer games development”; Technological Forecasting & Social Change, (January 2014)
• Nandhakumar, J., Panourgias, N.S. , and Scarbrough H., “From knowing it to ‘getting it’: Envisioning practices in computer games development”; Information Systems Research, (December 2013)
• Millo Y., Muniesa F., Panourgias N.S. and Scott S.V. “Organised detachment: Clearinghouse mechanisms in financial markets”; Information and Organization, Volume 15, Issue 3, (July 2005)

Book Chapters

• Millo, Y., Panourgias, N. and Zachariadis, M. (2021), "Capitalization of Data in the Development of Data-Driven Regulation" in Unger, B., Ferwerda J., Rossel, L. (Ed.) "Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators: Bringing Tax Money Back Into the COFFERS", Oxford University Press. ) [International Collaboration]
• Millo, Y., Panourgias, N.S. and Zachariadis, M. (2019), "Capitalization By Certification: Creating Information-Based Assets Through the Establishment of an Identification Infrastructure", in Kornberger, M., Bowker, G.C., Elyachar, J., Mennicken, A., Miller, P., Nucho, J.R. and Pollock, N. (Ed.) "Thinking Infrastructures - Research in the Sociology of Organizations", Vol. 62, Emerald Publishing ) [International Collaboration]

Research Grants/Research Awards previous to QMUL

• European Commission Horizon 2020 Funding Program, “Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators (COFFERS)” - Joint primary investigator on the role of global digital Legal Entity Identifiers in the regulation of financial markets as part of a EUR 5,000,000 research project to be undertaken by a consortium of European universities. (Bid approved May 2016)
• Co-investigator in £40,000 ESRC Grant (RES-598-25-0024) entitled “Valuing innovation: Developing business models for ‘serious’ computer games” (1 December 2009 -31 May 2010)
• Co-investigator in £100,000 ESRC Grant (RES-000-22-2809) entitled “Interdisciplinary collaboration in innovative computer game development: implications for theory, policy and practice” (September 2008 – November 2009)
• Royal Dutch Shell Bursary for the study of Information Systems (January 2004 – December 2005)
• EPSRC doctoral studentship (January 2004 – December 2007)
• CARR Deutsche Bank Research Student Funding (April 2008)

Supervision

Prior to joining QMUL, Dr Panourgias supervised three PhD completions. 

Current areas of PhD supervision:

• Valuing user attention in digital streaming services
• Factors affecting the adoption of electronic payment systems in post conflict economies
• The Impact of Brand on the Adoption of Cryptocurrency as a Payment Method by Consumers

Areas of interest for future PhD supervision:

• Decentralised Finance
• Asset Tokenization
• Emissions trading and Emissions Trading Systems
• Digital transformation of financial markets
• Creating and valuing digital intangibles

Public Engagement

 Invited Speaker

• Panourgias, N.S., “Fintech ‘thinking infrastructures’ and the assembling of a financial infrastructure for the trading of emissions in aviation”, FinTech Seminar Series, Alliance Manchester Business School, UK (31 October 2022)
• Panourgias, N.S., “Data-driven regulation of financial markets: data quality and the design of the global Legal Entity Identifier”, UKIERI-DST Workshop on AI, Cyber Risks and Data Science for FinTech and Digital Economy, University of Essex, UK (January 2022)
• Panourgias, N. S., “The Importance of Offerer-Beneficiary Dynamics for value co-creation in Digital Service Innovation: the case of digital-only bank Revolut”, ESCP Europe, Paris, France (November 2021)
• Panourgias, N. S., “Social Studies of Finance: Implications for Fintech Research”, FINTECHNEXT Speaker Series, Cork University Business School, University College Cork, Ireland (September 2019)
• Panourgias, N. S, “The Legal Entity Identifier: Identification infrastructures and the capitalisation of data for use in regulation”, Combatting Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators Masterclass, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark (September 2019)
• Panourgias, N. S, “Capitalization by certification: Identification infrastructures and their role in the capitalisation of data for use in regulation”, KBS Research Seminar Series, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland (April 2019)

External examiner

• PhD Examiner, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK (March 2022)
• PhD Examiner, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland (November 2019)
• PhD Examiner, Business Information Systems, Cork University Business School, University Collage Cork, Ireland (November 2019)
• External examiner for the BSc in Management programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science, (March 2014 – November 2016)

Intellectual Property Generation and Commercialisation

As part of his work on the Fintechnext project at University College Cork, Dr. Panourgias has participating in the following intellectual property commercialisation initiatives:

• Smart digital foreign exchange liquidity pool – Evaluation licence taken up by Fexco Group with full commercialisation opportunities being explored in collaboration with the company;
• Forecasting engine which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict future aircraft CO2 emissions and ensure that aircraft feel CO2 performances align with international, regional, and national aviation reduction targets – Evaluation licence taken up by Fexco Group and full integration into the company’s PACE platform is being undertaken;
• Private distributed ledger based tokenisation engine for the issuance and trading of CO2-backed digital tokens for the trusted exchange and extinguishing of emissions offset credits – Use case being developed in conjunction with Fexco Group with a view to full inclusion in the company’s Pace platform.

Business Engagement

As part of his work on the Fintechnext project at University College Cork, Dr. Panourgias has run the following workshops for executives at Fexco, an international financial services provide based in Ireland:

• Developing a use case and value proposition for the tokenization of emissions offset credits, one day workshop (March 2022)
• Commercialization of the Calm FX liquidity pool, one-day workshop (March 2022)
• Scenario Analysis on the future of foreign exchange an international payment services, 8 weekly sessions of 2 hours (January – March 2021)