Panmure House Fellowship

Welcoming the First Cohort of Panmure House Fellows

At the heart of Panmure House’s legacy and the Edinburgh Business School's (EBS) mission lies a shared vision: to champion accessible, practice-oriented business education and research that resonates globally. Key to this is fostering exceptional scholars driven to undertake research that not only transforms practice but also shapes the future of society. It is within this spirit that the Panmure House Fellowship was created - a beacon of opportunity and innovation, echoing the very principles of the Scottish Enlightenment that once filled its walls. The Fellowship encourages scholars to delve into research themes that resonate deeply with Panmure House's own interests and the challenges of the 21st century: Business and Society, Innovation and Enterprise, and Finance and Growth. These themes foster critical inquiry and interdisciplinary thinking, enabling scholars to address complex societal challenges from multiple perspectives. Panmure House is delighted to congratulate the first cohort of Fellows: Professor Carmen Boado-Penas, Dr Melis Ceylan, Professor Eoin McLaughlin, and Professor Beth Watts-Cobbe.
For these exceptional scholars, the Fellowship is more than just a research programme; it's a testament to Heriot-Watt University's unwavering commitment to nurturing scholarly excellence and driving real-world impact. It's designed to provide dedicated time and resources for scholars to delve into impactful research, empowering them to explore ideas and projects that have the potential to lead to major publications, grant proposals, or impactful case studies. The Panmure House Fellowship aligns seamlessly with the research ambitions of EBS and Panmure House’s own mission to champion critical inquiry and debate around the societal challenges of today. This ensures that the research undertaken is not only rigorous and robust but also addresses pressing issues facing our world.
Panmure House stands ready to support and inspire these scholars, just as it once did for Adam Smith and the great minds of the Scottish Enlightenment. Together, they will continue to push boundaries, challenge norms, and shape a better future for all.

For Boado-Penas, Professor in MACS, the opportunity to work across disciplines and engage in joint research projects will be critical to the success of her research around Sustainable Climate Insurance. Boado-Penas' research is directly aligned with the research themes and goals of the Panmure House Fellowship, and the Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics has already forged meaningful connections with prominent businesses such as Geocapita, Hymans Robertson, Moodys, and the Department for Work and Pensions. Working collaboratively with Panmure House, however, will allow her work to make the greatest impact on society. ‘My research on pensions addresses a crucial and highly topical subject due to the continuing population ageing,’ explains Boado-Penas. ‘Given its inherently interdisciplinary nature, pensions research stands to benefit significantly from collaboration with both Panmure House Fellows and EBS academics.’ 

Ceylan, whose research unites theory and practice through a focus on consumer behaviour and well-being, is committed to equipping marketers, policymakers, and consumers with the tools they need to be successful. ‘Sustainable product offerings have substantially increased in the marketplace,’ reflects Ceylan. ‘However, it is still challenging for marketers to guide consumers towards sustainable product offerings in a mutually beneficial way.’ To address this challenge, Ceylan and her research team have proposed a range of critical projects designed to explore the role of AI agents in marketing communications to promote sustainable product consumption. ‘We argue that when the right marketing communication strategy is used in interactions with potential customers via AI agents, AI can effectively increase consumers’ willingness to purchase and consume sustainable products and hence improve their well-being,’ she explains. Ceylan’s proposed activity will enable EBS to contribute to sustainable development, build research expertise in sustainable systems and well-being, and support inclusivity by offering managerial and policy implications in enhancing the health and well-being of individuals and societies globally.

For McLaughlin, applying for the Panmure House Fellowship was a natural extension of his career-long commitment to world-leading research on economics, history, and sustainable capitalism. McLaughlin, who has published widely on Inclusive Wealth – academia’s attempt to measure the wealth of a country by taking account of different forms of capital and tracking the change in wealth – is guided by his desire to learn important lessons from the past to better shape our future: ‘I believe that better informed policy can lead to an improvement in real world outcomes. Improving how we measure wealth will be key to managing problems of sustainable development in the future.’ According to McLaughlin, the Panmure House Fellowship will provide a strong foundation for critical contributions of knowledge to the field of economics: ‘The Panmure House Fellowship will enable me to focus on transforming society through the development of new understandings about the trajectory of the global economy over time and space. A better understanding of how we arrived on our current path through a more informed appreciation of the role of natural capital will help us monitor and manage future developments.’ 

Professor Beth Watts-Cobbe is Deputy Director at the Institute for Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research (I-SPHERE), Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. She is an applied social scientist committed to to achieving real world impacts through her research. She is an expert on homelessness, housing, poverty and broader questions about the design, effectiveness and ethical legitimacy of social and welfare policies. She leads the 2021-26 Crisis-funded Homelessness Monitors project tracking the impacts of economic and policy change on homelessness across Great Britain and a Joseph Rowntree Foundation-funded study exploring how to address homelessness and destitution among migrants excluded from the social safety-net in Scotland.