Interview with Professor Christine Cooper

Our fourth interview of the series with Distinguished Accounting and Finance Professors is with Christine Cooper, Professor of Finance, Edinburgh University and scheduled keynote speaker at the 2026 BAFA Annual Conference.

1. Academic background and career path
Prof. Christine Cooper described her unconventional route into academia. She left school before completing A levels and worked as a bookkeeper before returning to education through night school. She later completed a business studies degree with a focus on accounting and finance, taught at a further education college, and then pursued a master’s degree at the London School of Economics. Her academic career subsequently developed through positions at the University of Strathclyde and the University of Edinburgh, where she became a leading scholar in critical accounting. The conversation also noted her recent transition away from the role of Editor in Chief of Critical Perspectives on Accounting to establish a new diamond open access journal.

2. Advice for early career academics
Christine emphasized diligence, extensive reading, and intellectual curiosity as foundations of academic success. She noted that the academic environment has become more competitive than in earlier decades, making sustained effort and deep engagement with the literature particularly important. While early successes may occur, she stressed that long term progress in academia typically requires consistent hard work and careful positioning of research within broader intellectual debates.

3. Collaboration and academic culture
The discussion highlighted the importance of building social capital and maintaining a collaborative mindset. Christine encouraged researchers to view colleagues as collaborators rather than competitors and to participate actively in academic networks. Both speakers expressed concern about cultures of excessive secrecy sometimes encouraged in doctoral training, arguing that openness and constructive engagement strengthen the research community.

4. Academic responsibilities and pressures
Christine reflected on the broader responsibilities of senior academics, including teaching, doctoral supervision, peer review, editorial work, and service to the academic community. She also discussed the pressures created by performance evaluation systems such as the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), which can shape research agendas and affect wellbeing. At the same time, she argued that academics should engage more actively with the public and ensure that research findings remain accessible in an era of misinformation.

5. Publishing practices and open access
The conversation examined changes in academic publishing, including the development of new open access journals such asOpen Accounting. Christine advised researchers to understand the intellectual context of journals before submitting, comparing journal submission to joining an ongoing scholarly conversation. She also noted that high article processing charges and language barriers can create inequalities in global academic participation.

6. AI and research integrity
Finally, the discussion addressed the growing role of artificial intelligence in academic work. Christine raised concerns about AI generated manuscripts and its potential implications for peer review and research integrity. Both speakers agreed that AI can serve as a useful research assistant, but it cannot yet produce high quality scholarly work independently. They also noted that AI tools may democratize research by making sophisticated analytical capabilities more widely accessible.