Plato Partnership Limited (“Plato Partnership”), a not-for-profit company bringing creative solutions and efficiencies to today’s equity marketplace, has today announced its intention to enter into an agreement with Imperial College Business School to establish and lead a European Market Structure research network.

Led by Dr Andrei Kirilenko, Director of the Centre for Global Finance and Technology at Imperial College Business School, the initiative will build and grow a network that will facilitate independent academic research across the full breadth of the market structure debate.

The initiative marks a realisation of Plato Partnership’s core objective of building a meaningful vehicle with which to combine the expertise of academia and the practical knowledge bank of market participants on both the buy and sell side.

Combining market participants and academics in this way is a global first that allows for the in-depth analysis of consolidated venue data sets usually beyond the reaches of availability to academia. It is expected the research and analysis around this data will provide the foundation for a number of leading conferences and high level industry roundtables to identify and promote appropriate market structures for the benefit of all participants.

Dr Andrei Kirilenko, Director of the Centre for Global Finance and Technology at Imperial College Business School, commented: 

“The European Market Structure research network has the clear potential to be a key focus for the largest global buy-side and sell-side firms behind the Plato Partnership. This joint project will allow the Plato Partnership and Imperial to work together to share their knowledge and data with top-quality academics conducting independent research on market structure and technology issues. This Is a game-changer for both academia, the industry and the regulators.

“In order to grow and attract the best academic talent to work on challenging yet under-researched issues, we will pay particular attention to the development of junior academics, such as Dr Savitar Sundaresan, who was recently awarded the Best Paper by a Young Researcher Award at the inaugural Plato Partnership MI3 conference.”” 

Nej Djelal, Plato Partnership Co-Chair, commented: 

“At the very beginning of the Plato Partnership vision we recognized a unique opportunity for the industry to give back to market participants and end investors through accessible and independent academic research. 

“In launching MI3 earlier this year we took a huge step towards this vision and we hope that today, by harnessing the combined expertise of Imperial College Business School and our members, we will be able to strengthen the ties we have forged between academia and the market to continue to deliver real, tangible benefits for our members.”  

Mike Bellaro, Plato Co-Chair and Global Head of Equity Trading, Deutsche Asset Management, said: 

“The true value that Plato Partnership brings to the market is through the experts that it is able to  bring together for an unbiased exchange of ideas, be these from the buy side, the sell side, a venue or academia. 

“The European Market Structure Research Network will build upon the ground breaking work started by our Market Innovator 3 (MI3), providing important data, research and analysis to market participants. The commitment of such a renowned educational institution as Imperial College Business School is a reflection of the excellent progress Plato Partnership has made in delivering tangible results against our core objective of improving market efficiency for all.”