Plato Partnership has entered into an agreement with Imperial College business School in London to establish a European market structure research network.
Dr Andrei Kirilenko, director of the centre for global finance and technology at Imperial College Business School, will lead the network and produce academic research for the group.
Plato said combining market participants and academics allows for in-depth analysis of venue data sets usually beyond the reaches available to academics.
The research and analysis produced will provide the foundation for a number of conferences and industry roundtables to identify and promote market structures.
Mike Bellaro, Plato co-chair and global head of equity trading at Deutsche Asset Management, explained following the launch of MI3 earlier this year the partnership with Imperial College marks a step towards Plato Partnership’s vision.
“At the very beginning of the Plato Partnership vision we recognised a unique opportunity for the industry to give back to market participants and end investors through accessible and independent academic research,” he said.
Kirilenko added: “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.
Last month, Plato Partnership expanded its founder members with the addition of Jefferies, Cedar Rock Capital and SKAGEN.
As new members, the firms will be given a seat on the board at Plato and will contribute to working groups aimed at improving equities trading in Europe.