2024 IMI Research Grant Announcement
The Institute for Management and Innovation is delighted to announce the 2024 winners of the IMI Research Grants.
IMI Research Grants support our faculty members in their efforts to conduct leading-edge research contributing to IMI’s mission in transforming thinking to solve the hardest problems facing people, their communities, and societies globally. The grants are intended to assist in developing, sustaining and expanding research initiatives. Further, the research initiatives driven by our grant recipients make strides to further the University of Toronto’s goals in innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainable futures, and inclusive societies.
Ann Armstrong, Ningyuan Chen, Ruben Gaetani and Jody Grewal will receive grants in 2024 to embark on research that touches many topics central to IMI’s expertise.
Inclusive societies: Ann Armstrong, Director of ICUBE, is an expert on social entrepreneurship, and her work spans green curricula to organizational design to academic trauma. Her 2024 IMI Research Grant will go toward a forthcoming book. This research, focused on gendered oppression in academia, explores the moral injuries that women academics suffer and re-imagines the academic endeavour’s structures and process. She is co-authoring the proposed book with the former IMI Director, Soo Min Toh.
Machine learning: Ningyuan Chen, Associate Professor who is jointly appointed to UTM Department of Management and IMI and cross-appointed to Rotman, researches approaches to making data-driven decisions in the context of revenue management. His 2024 IMI Research Grant will support his current project in demonstrating how incorporating pricing strategies can provide new insights into classical machine learning development. The research will further look closely at the implications of pricing in the context of active learning. Ningyuan’s work on this element of machine learning management is key in the support of leading-edge research in innovation. In particular, the research will have practical implications for the operations of companies providing artificial intelligence such as LLMs as services, a key component of Canadian national AI strategy.
Innovation & technology: Ruben Gaetani, Assistant Professor who is jointly appointed to the Department of Management and IMI and cross-appointed to Rotman, conducts research at the intersection of economic growth, innovation, and urban economics. Rubens’ grant supports his current dual studies, which focus on understanding the drivers and implications of geographic diffusion of technology – critical for the design of growth and innovation policies. These paired studies focus on developing a spatial model to quantify the role that the process of idea diffusion plays in explaining the growth dynamics of regions, and assessing the impact of trade liberalizations on the patterns of international technology transfers.
Sustainable futures: Jody Grewal's research agenda focuses on how companies contribute to and mitigate climate change, and the role of transparency in reducing carbon emissions. An Assistant Professor jointly appointed to the Department of Management and IMI, and cross-appointed to Rotman, Jody’s 2024 IMI Research Grant supports her research in examining whether mandatory carbon reporting reduces the disclosure of favourable versus unfavorable environmental information, a form of greenwashing.
IMI congratulates our researchers on their grants, and we look forward to the impact of their work in the year to come.