Dr Michelle Richey, Professor M. N. Ravishankar and colleagues from Aston University and the University of Sheffield were successfully awarded The Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) and British Academy of Management (BAM) Collaborative Research and Capacity Building Grant to research refugee entrepreneurship in Kenya.

The SAMS-BAM Research and Capacity Building grants, worth up to £150,000 each, are aimed at researchers who want to develop an empirical research project that:

• Enables capacity building by bringing together a group of researchers from at least two HE institutions, including early career as well as experienced researchers
• Produces novel conceptual outcomes based on rigorous, innovative use of methods and by developing original ways of thinking to address complex management problems 
• Demonstrates the social value of management research conducted in the public interest.

This grant scheme is an important means of supporting the business and management research community to produce high-quality collaborative research that has a clear benefit to society.

The awarded project, Facilitating impact and transferability for refugee entrepreneurship interventions in Africa, is led by Dr Richey, Professor Ravishankar, Professor Monder Ram OBE (Aston University) and Dr Raymond Randall (University of Sheffield). This project will look at the ways in which refugees work entrepreneurially around obstacles to establish livelihoods, forge new networks and create opportunities for themselves and their families, and the impact of interventions by public and private organisations in addressing common barriers to empower refugees, with a particular focus on the largest refugee entrepreneurship programme in the global south - the African Entrepreneurship Collective (AEC), founded in 2012, which has to date supported more than 4,000 refugee entrepreneurs in Rwanda and now seeks to expand into Kenya.

Dr Richey, Lecturer in Technology and Entrepreneurship and principal investigator of the project, said:

“This project is a natural extension of our on-going work with refugee entrepreneurship support initiatives. We are very grateful to SAMS and BAM for supporting this work which we hope will galvanise even more support for refugee-led businesses based in African camps and towns.”

M. N. Ravishankar, Professor of Globalisation and Technology, added:

“This project is close to our hearts. We are excited to work with the African Entrepreneur Collective, whose work in Rwanda and Kenya is inspirational. Through this project, we hope to shape policy instruments that help refugees improve their life chances and establish sustainable livelihoods.”

The Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) is a charity founded in 1963 to advance education in the field of management and to develop the management studies community. It also provides a governance structure for the Journal of Management Studies, an FT50 journal with an Impact Factor of 5.839.

The British Academy of Management (BAM) is the leading authority on the academic field of management in the UK, supporting and representing the community of scholars and engaging with international peers. It has around 2000 members, from the UK and around the globe, who include management researchers, practitioners and doctoral students.