In its role of contributing to the strategy development for the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and its public sector partners, the Industrial Mathematics KTN has initiated a series of workshops in modelling and simulation in finance: the KTN Finance Workshops.

This series represents an example of the Industrial Mathematics KTN's objective of organising high-profile Strategy Workshops. The chosen topics come from the areas being pursued through the TSB's Innovation Platforms and other areas where we know that the TSB is gathering evidence - such as finance in this particular case. The output from Strategy Workshops will be short reports that are publicly available, and will be used as a starting point for building relationships with relevant key stakeholders.

The first workshop of the series "Fast Financial Algorithms and Computing" was hosted by the Risk Management Lab at the Tanaka Business School on 4 July 2007 jointly organised by the Imperial College and the KTN. A report on the event and the discussion that took place is now available.

Following the success of the workshop in collaboration with Imperial College, the KTN has worked with the Maxwell Institute and colleagues from Heriot-Watt University to organise a second workshop to support the Financial Services sector. The theme of this second workshop was "Challenges in Quantitative Risk Management for Insurance" and it was held in Edinburgh on 29 November 2007.

This series of workshops will foster closer links between senior practitioners from the Financial Sector and senior academics from UK Universities. The output from the workshops will be used to inform Government bodies (notably the Technology Strategy Board and the Research Councils) so that resources can be best targeted.

If you are interested in this initiative and wish to receive further details, please contact Dr Vera Hazelwood.