Northern Ireland’s first ever financial trading room is set to open at Queen’s University Belfast. The First Derivatives Trading Room, supported by Invest NI, will provide a dynamic learning environment for students hoping to embark in a career in financial services or technology.
Based at Queen’s University Management School, Riddel Hall, Stranmillis, the facility, which will replicate New York and London trading rooms, will give students a real-life experience of a busy stock exchange with the capacity to deal in equities, bonds, foreign exchange and derivative instruments. It will transform a corner of the Management School into a financial hub reminiscent of Wall Street or Canary Wharf, and prepare future graduates to make their mark in the world.
Funded by First Derivatives, a leading provider of products and consulting services to the capital markets industry, the trading room is also backed by Invest NI.
First Derivatives offers one of the largest graduate training programmes in Northern Ireland with up to 30 Queen’s graduates employed annually by the company.
And Chief Executive, Brian Conlon, sees the trading room as a platform for closer engagement between the company and Queen’s students and staff.
He said: “As one of Northern Ireland’s key graduate recruiters we recognise the value of working closely with Universities. From our perspective this is an opportunity to collaborate with Queen’s on projects and develop courses in Computational Finance which align more closely with our company’s requirements.
“At First Derivatives we are recognised in global financial centres for the quality of our people. Taking in graduates who have practical experience of the trading floor as well accessing the facility will allow our in-house training to build upon this knowledge and provide more rounded consultants to market.
“Partnerships like First Derivatives, Queen’s and Invest NI create synergies between the world of business, government and academia and drive the development of Northern Ireland’s knowledge economy.”
The trading room has the potential to make Northern Ireland a more interesting proposition to international companies and investors keen to set up where there is a pool of highly skilled graduates who blend theory with practice. And it should also make the Queen’s University Management School more attractive to international students.
Alastair Hamilton, CEO, Invest Northern Ireland believes the facility can help leverage significant investment into Northern Ireland. “Northern Ireland is already among the top global destinations for financial technology investments and Belfast is the number one city for attracting research and development in financial services software. Our impressive track record is based on the quality of talent we have in the region and on the fact th
at our world-class universities continue to mould programmes to meet the needs of industry. “We know the financial services sector offers further opportunity to create high value employment in Northern Ireland. Developing the skills to make this happen is crucial to growing the sector so we are delighted to support the First Derivatives Trading Room.”
And Professor Donal McKillop from Queen’s University Management School is looking forward to providing a more sophisticated package to students.
He said: “The First Derivatives Trading Room, supported by Invest NI, is an interactive virtual environment where students learn to trade financial instruments and manage financial portfolios using live prices and the latest investment and trading technology. They will have the opportunity to think and learn on their feet, building up the skills needed in the high-pressure world of the trading room.
“Having these practical skills in today’s competitive and uncertain environment will undoubtedly give Queen’s finance students a competitive edge in the jobs market. The trading room will also enable the Management School to provide new bespoke postgraduate programs in Computational Finance. There is no doubt that Queen’s is taking teaching to the next level and enhancing the University’s reputation as a global leader in financial education.”
For media inquiries please contact Queen’s Communications Office. Tel: 028 9097 3087 or email comms.office@qub.ac.uk
For more information on the New Trading Room contact Donal McKillop, QUMS, Tel: +44 (0)28 9097 4852.
Smoking doubles the risk of developing oesophageal cancer in people with Barrett’s Oesophagus, according to scientists at Queen’s University Belfast and the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry.
Affecting one in every 100 people in the UK, Barrett’s Oesophagus is a disorder in which the lining of the oesophagus is damaged by stomach acid and is changed to a lining similar to that of the stomach.
The research, published in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association, was carried out over 13 years and involved over 3000 Barrett’s patients. It found that those who smoked tobacco were twice as likely to develop cancer of the oesophagus, than those who did not.
Dr Helen Coleman from the Centre for Public Health in Queen’s School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences led the study. She said: “We found that tobacco smoking emerged as the strongest lifestyle risk factor for cancer progression for patients with Barrett’s Oesophagus. The risk of developing this cancer doubled for those who were smoking tobacco. One of the most interesting observations was that someone who smoked less than one pack a day was still as likely to develop cancer as those who smoked many more.”
The study was the first of its kind worldwide in terms of size by taking a sample of over 3000 patients. Researchers were able to get information about smoking at the time a person was first diagnosed with Barrett’s Oesophagus to see how this influenced cancer risk years later. This is important for reducing bias known to be associated with asking patients about their smoking habits in the past.
Although these findings need to be confirmed in future studies, the study’s researchers suggest that tobacco smoking should be discouraged and smoking-cessation strategies considered in Barrett’s Oesophagus patients in order to reduce future cancer risk.
For media inquiries please contact Claire O’Callaghan on 00 44 (0) 28 9097 5391 / 07814 415 451 or c.ocallaghan@qub.ac.uk
Read 
