We are delighted to share that UCL School of Management PhD candidate Nelberto Nicholas “Sam” Quinto has recently received a prestigious $10,000 research grant from Negotiations and Team Resources (NTR), a non-profit organisation that supports innovative research and teaching in negotiation, dispute resolution, and teamwork.
Sam is a doctoral research within UCL School of Management’s Organisations and Innovations group, and conducts research on conflict management, creativity, and how using generative AI shapes outcomes and processes in these areas. The grant provides crucial funding in supporting one of Sam’s dissertation projects, which tackles the persistent problem of decision impasses in complex settings where multiple stakeholders have divergent but interdependent interests.
For Sam, the research grant acts as an indication that people and organisations care deeply about finding better ways for groups to strategically reach consensus when the stakes are high and agreement is tough. Impasses are costly and damaging. Whether it’s addressing climate change, managing labour disputes, preventing government shutdowns or coordinating large-scale public health responses, Sam feels strongly that we urgently need new strategies and insights for breaking these deadlocks.
The Negotiations and Team Resources grant makes it possible for Sam to carry out an ambitious research design that would otherwise be very hard to fund. He plans to conduct a large-scale behavioural experiment with hundreds of participants negotiating in groups while relying on machine learning to analyse how they resolve impasses.
