Press release 2012

The Financial Mathematics and Computation Cluster (FMC²) is pleased to announce that Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Review on 3 May 2012, funding has been approved for the period September 2012 through to February 2015. Funding will primarily support the training of PhD and postdoctoral researchers to underpin education in the financial services sector. The cluster has secured funding of €4.2m from both industry and SFI.

The review panel included Professor Juergen Branke (Warwick), Professor Andrew Cairns (Heriot Watt) and Professor Lane Hughston (King's College London), and was chaired by Professor Stanley Pliska (Stanford). This is a significant outcome for the future development of the FMC² team.

FMC², founded in 2009, is an SFI funded Strategic Research Cluster and a collaboration between colleagues at UCD, DCU and NUIM. Principal Investigators include Tony Brabazon (UCD School of Business and former Director), Gregory Connor (NUIM Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting), John Cotter (UCD School of Business and new Director of FMC2), David Edelman (UCD School of Business), Paulo Guasoni (DCU School of Mathematical and Actuarial Sciences) and Michael O'Neill (UCD School of Computer Science). This success is a tribute to the excellent research endeavours of the FMC² team as a whole. The cluster also involves contributions from researchers in a number of international and domestic institutions including amongst others, Columbia Business School, UCLA and the LSE.

FMC² aims to continue to develop its cutting-edge research and research capability in financial mathematics, financial computation and financial economics both nationally and at an international level. Since 2009, it has generated a critical mass of doctoral and post-doctoral positions and a considerable range of research outputs including publications, presentations and outreach activities. The review group highlighted the potential economic impact of the cluster and FMC² is determined to achieve this potential by contributing to Ireland's economic and social recovery in a meaningful way.

SFI press release 2009

The Tanaiste Mary Coughlan, Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment, announced the establishment of FMC² a new Science Foundation Ireland Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) on 14 October 2009.

Led by Professor Anthony Brabazon, FMC² is a partnership between University College Dublin, Dublin City University and NUI - Maynooth.

Industry and academic partners of FMC² at the launch of the cluster by the Tanaiste Mary Coughlan

Overview

The Financial Mathematics Computation Cluster (FMC²) is a research collaboration between Industry, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, and NUI Maynooth. FMC² aims to create a globally-leading centre of financial research which will provide a critical underpinning for the future development of, and employment growth in, the international financial services sector in Ireland.

In order to provide a clear focus for the research activities of FMC², we initially concentrate on the development of theory and methods for the task of asset management. This area is chosen as it is one of the primary activities within the IFSC, it offers high value-add, and has substantial growth potential. In addition to its practical significance, activities in the asset management encapsulate a wide variety of important scientific research questions in mathematical finance and computation.

The academic principal investigators involved in FMC² are Professor Anthony Brabazon, Professor Gregory Connor, Professor John Cotter, Dr. David Edelman, Prof. Paolo Guasoni and Dr. Michael O’Neill.

The first concentrates on how we should construct and manage portfolios of assets and covers such important issues as optimal asset allocation, risk management of the resulting investment portfolios, performance measurement of fund managers, algorithmic trading and efficient execution dealing. The cluster will also develop new software tools for these tasks.