The Stevens Institute of Technology and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced on July 12 that they had received the first-ever National Science Foundation grant to create an industry-university cooperative research center dedicated specifically to financial science and technology.
Stevens and Rensselaer will bring together industry and academic partners, as well as decision-makers involved in high-impact research efforts, to conduct relevant and potentially commercializable research.
The Research Center for the Advancement of FinTech, or CRAFT, is expected to receive approximately $ 1 million in funding in the first year of operation, with $ 300,000 provided by NSF each year during the period. five-year grant, and the rest funded by its industry. members. Stevens will serve as the lead administrative institution under new NSF rules regarding the designation of a lead institution for all industry-university cooperative research centers.
Led by Steve Yang and George Calhoun at Stevens’ School of Business and Aparna Gupta at Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, CRAFT highlights the country’s strategic investment in managing the risks and unintended consequences of emerging challenges – and yet unknown – facing the high-tech financial services industry.
“The federal government‘s investment in CRAFT demonstrates the critical need for collaborative research and policy initiatives to guide the industry in this high-tech transformation,” said Yang, who has led the grant proposal since its inception. “Stevens’ location in Hoboken, New Jersey, and his expertise in both technology and business, coupled with our strong relationships with financial firms, position us well to be a true research partner. applied for business as we seek to increase the number of university and industry partners. “
Some of the first areas of research interest include cybersecurity; high frequency automated markets; technological risk and regulation; marketing; and applications of blockchain, quantum computing, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Much of the work on the CRAFT research projects will be done by students from participating universities, providing essential training ground for the future fintech workforce.
The Hanlon Financial Systems Center, which includes two groundbreaking financial analysis labs, challenges students in Stevens’ fintech-related bachelor’s and master’s degree programs to apply fintech solutions to real-world business problems. This resource, along with Rensselaer’s Honors Masters program in Quantitative Finance and Risk Analysis and other key fintech assets and programs, will be essential in moving the CRAFT agenda forward.
