“In the 21st century‚ capacity for situation-specific innovation in financial markets and risk management will be among the core determinants of which emerging markets graduate to mature development and which remain mired in middle-income traps,” commented the dean of the Faculty of Commerce‚ Professor Don Ross, at the launch. “AIFMRM’s establishment improves the prognosis in this area.”

Founding sponsors of the institute are FirstRand Ltd‚ Barclays Africa Group‚ Liberty Holdings Ltd and the Western Cape Government’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

The unit will be headed up by Associate Professor David Taylor, who said that the institute was specifically focused on two key areas. One was transforming the profile of quantitative finance‚ risk management‚ insurance and banking professionals. The other was ensuring that a steady and sustainable pipeline of African university graduates with sophisticated knowledge in banking‚ insurance‚ risk management and quantitative finance exists on the continent.

UCT-TRU, which is headed up by Dr Richard George, is currently working with Cape Town Tourism, Grant Thornton and the City of Cape Town in a United Nations–World Tourism Organisation collaborative project analysing the economic impact of tourism in Cape Town, and is also working with the Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa on international tourist data collection for the Southern African Development Community.

The unit, which is the research arm of the newly established African Institute of Financial Markets and Risk Management, co-hosted two groundbreaking “Prescient Securities/ACQuFRR Quant” conferences and co-organised the “African Institute of Mathematical Sciences Summer School in Mathematical Finance” in 2013. In addition to its regular weekly Seminar Series, the unit also hosted two industry-led Masterclasses and four Extraordinary Seminars, and established a research collaboration with the University of Nairobi in Kenya.

ACQuFRR’s publication output continues to grow, with members publishing 13 peer-reviewed journal articles in 2013.

Although the country still compares poorly with similar economies – the latest data shows South Africa’s TEA (total early-stage entrepreneurial activity) rate is at 10.6% compared to Brazil’s 17.3 % – entrepreneurship levels, as measured by the number of individuals who are engaged in starting or have just started a new business, are now at their highest since 2002.

Dr Mike Herrington, executive director of the GEM international operations and co-author of the GEM South African report, says that this is significant because entrepreneurial activity is understood to be a necessary condition of healthy societies, specifically as it contributes to economic growth and job creation, which in South Africa is a key concern.

The GEM study provides very clear guidelines as to what needs to be done to support entrepreneurs and boost job creation. Its recommendations include investing in changing attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurship, which are still poor in this country, fixing the education and health systems and cleaning up crime and corruption. “These elements are the potholes in South Africa’s road to economic success. And unless government takes the time to fill them in, very little will change and even the fanciest of policies to support entrepreneurs will founder,” cautions Dr Herrington.

“An active research community is the foundation for our claim to be a leading business school with high aspirations,” says Professor Ralph Hamann, research director at the school. The GSB is consistently rated as the top business school in Africa and it is the only African school to have its full-time MBA ranked in the prestigious Financial Times top 100 MBA ranking.

GSB research focuses on three thematic clusters: social innovation and sustainability; values-based leadership; and emerging markets finance, investment and trade. PhD students are supported by a rigorous programme of five PhD and Research Colloquia throughout the year to provide strong theoretical and methodological foundations and to develop a collegial, supportive and well-informed research culture at the school. First-year PhD students are required to participate, while other students and faculty are encouraged to become involved as participants and facilitators.

The investment in student research also contributes to the GSB’s growing publication output. Faculty and students published a record 48 peer-reviewed scholarly publications in 2013, including 33 journal papers, 10 books or book chapters, and five accredited conference papers.