Dr Marta Fernandez De Arroyabe Arranz

Marta F. Arroyabe is the Deputy Director of the Insitute for Analytics and Data Science (IADS) and a reader at Essex Business School. She is a Senior Fellow at the Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security (RISCS) and associate editor of the Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, and the Journal of Innovation & Knowledge. Marta is also a member of the Bank of England and HM Treasury’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Academic Advisory Group and a member of the Easter Cyber Resilience Centre’s Advisory Group, where she advises on issues around the digitalisation and cybersecurity of UK small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Previously, she held the Deputy Head, Undergraduate Programme Director and Q-step lead positions at the Strategy Operations and Entrepreneurship (SOE) Group.

Marta’s research spans three key areas: innovation, digitalisation & cybersecurity, and environmental management. In innovation, she explores how firms develop and implement innovation, examining their strategic decisions and approaches. Her work on digitalisation and cybersecurity investigates IT security, digital transformation, and cybersecurity resilience in SMEs, focusing on decision-making, investment strategies, and the interplay between cybersecurity challenges and Industry 4.0. She studies eco-innovation and the circular economy in environmental management, analysing business strategies to enhance environmental performance and societal impact. She has published her work in “Journal of Business Research”, “Strategy Science”, “R&D Management”, “Technovation”, “British Journal of Management”, “Business Strategy and the Environment”, “Public Management Review”, “Technological Forecasting and Social Change”, “Journal of Computer Information Systems” or “Computers and Security”. Her research has also been published as written evidence by the UK Parliament.

Marta has successfully attracted over £450,000 in external funding through several grants from Innovate UK, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Society for the Advancement of Management Studies. She has also been co-investigator in a project of 4.7 million from the European Commission. She has also participated in the Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (Innovate UK), where is co-leading the project CyberSecurityAId.

Marta is a permanent member of the scientific committee of the International Conference on University, Enterprise, and Society (UES) and an extramural research fellow at the University of Luxembourg. She is an EUREKA expert and a reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Marta is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and an external examiner to the University of Glasgow. She is also a member of the Peer Review College of the British Academy of Management. She is currently co-editing a Special Issue at the British Journal of Management.

Marta has received the EBS Teaching Leadership Award in 2022, Best Reviewer Award at Industry and Innovation Journal in 2022, and has been nominated for the Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award for three consecutive years at the University of Essex. She has also received the Best Developmental Paper Award at the 2023 British Academy of Management conference (HRM track).

Marta is currently a visiting researcher at Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) and the University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg).