Award of ERC Research Grant to Phanish Puranam
Dr Phanish Puranam receives funding on a competitive basis from the European Research Council (ERC).
We are delighted to announce that Dr Phanish Puranam has received funding on a competitive basis from the European Research Council (ERC). The grant, which amounts to €378,000, has been awarded for a three-year research programme that Phanish will conduct on ‘The Foundations of Organization Design'.
Over 2,500 applications from the physical, social and life sciences across Europe were submitted to the ERC under the second round of this scheme, and the ERC chose to fund less than 10% of these proposals.
This award was made under the ERC's second competition for the Starting Independent Investigators scheme. The ERC is the first pan-European funding agency for investigator-driven frontier research - the "Pursuit of questions at or beyond the frontiers of knowledge, without regard to established disciplinary boundaries". Its main aim is to stimulate scientific excellence by supporting and encouraging the very best and truly creative scientists, scholars and engineers to be adventurous and take risks in their research. This award will provide resources to support teaching buyouts, research assistance, and direct research expenses.
In response to the award, Phanish said: "Organization design is an important part of what senior managers do, and is the most important lever for the implementation of strategy. Developments in organization theory have unfortunately not kept pace with the experiments being conducted in the world of practice. I intend to use this grant to work towards improving the theoretical foundations of the study of organization structures and designs. I am fortunate to have excellent doctoral students and colleagues at London Business School to accompany me on this journey. "
Phanish is an Associate Professor in the Strategic & International Management Area. He holds a London Business School Term Chair and is Co-Director of the Aditya Birla India Centre.