Dr Nikolai Kazantsev is a research associate at the Business Model Innovation group, led by Prof. Chander Velu.

His research interests include:

• qualitative methods in technology and operations management, which feed data to system dynamics or ontologies

• elastic manufacturing systems, i.e., those able to scale output quickly and cost-effectively by provisioning and de-provisioning resources in an autonomic autonomic manner

• preparing production systems for next catastrophic disruption, such as pandemics. These systems will develop, reconfigure and deploy manufacturing capacity for the limited number of products for preventing contamination, primary care and intensive care.

Nikolai received his PhD from the Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, after the dissertation ‘Supporting SME collaborations in low-volume high-variability manufacturing’. His postgraduate research was supported by the EU-funded project DIGICOR, Zoetis – the largest animal health company, The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Nikolai is elected Junior Research Fellow at Clare Hall College (October 2024).