Ufuk Gucbilmez

Country of origin: Turkey

Lecturer, University of Edinburgh

I came to Lancaster University in 2005 as an MSc Finance student and had a productive period of study over the course of the one-year programme. I had the opportunity of writing my dissertation under the supervision of Professor Bart Lambrecht who encouraged me to apply for a PhD scholarship. After being successful in my application, I commenced with my doctoral studies in 2006. I was supervised by Prof Grzegorz Pawlina and Dr Shantanu Banerjee.

The prospect of obtaining a PhD Accounting and Finance degree from Lancaster and the quality of my research helped me secure a lectureship position even before the completion of my studies at Lancaster. I started working at the University of Edinburgh Business School as a lecturer in August 2010 and submitted my PhD thesis the following month.

I can say with confidence that a PhD degree from Lancaster University Management School is well respected by other business schools, both in and out of the UK. This was clear when I was searching the job market, as well as later on during my interactions with academics from around the world.

Lancaster’s PhD programme in Accounting and Finance stands above many others offered in the UK. The quality of supervision is particularly high. I have hugely benefited from the regular meetings I had with my supervisors. They kept a close eye on my progress and were genuinely interested in my development as a researcher. The vibrant research seminar series was also tremendously useful for me. As a PhD student, I learned a lot from excellent academics who came to present their work and also from Lancaster faculty in terms of their academic scrutiny of the presented work. There was often an opportunity to have a discussion with visiting academics, which was always insightful but especially when there were overlapping research interests.

Overall, my PhD from Lancaster helped me start my academic career on a firm footing. Five years on since my graduation, I have continued to collaborate with colleagues at Lancaster in joint research projects and I have maintained relationships with fellow PhD graduates, who now work for esteemed institutions (both academic and nonacademic) around the globe.