Nirat Rujimora, PhD
Email: niratruj@gmail.com
I'm an applied economist working at the intersection of economics, data science, and public policy. My research leverages firm-level, project-level, and regional data to investigate economic transformation, innovation, policy impacts, and place-based development, with applications in climate policy, the green economy, and the creative industries. Methodologically, I combine econometric approaches, including causal inference, with data science techniques such as natural language processing using transformer-based deep learning models, network analysis, and spatial methods to analyse complex economic and policy challenges.
Professional Experience
Research Associate
Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre
2025 - Present
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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Quantify the wider economic and societal benefits of public R&D investment (UKRI GtR and EU CORDIS APIs) through a mixed-methods pipeline combining topic modelling (BERTopic), few-shot text classification (SetFit), missing data imputation (CART), spatial analysis, and network methods to map knowledge diffusion and estimate ATT.
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Estimate the causal impact of public R&D funding on firm-level employment - with a focus on creative funding and creative firms - using a staggered and reversible Difference-in-Differences design, linking UKRI GtR project-level data with Companies House data (via API) and FAME firm-level panel data, and applying doubly-robust estimation to recover credible ATT estimates across industries, project types and locations.
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Develop a fine-tuned DistilBERT classifier (in collaboration with UKRI) to identify creative industry projects from large-scale research abstracts.
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Collaborate with DCMS to critically assess the limitations of conventional productivity measurement frameworks within the Museums and Heritage sector, contributing to methodological debate on cultural value and non-market output.
Research Assistant
Newcastle University
2022 - 2025
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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Measure, map and investigate spatial autocorrelation of social capital across European regions using European Social Survey data, principal component analysis, and Global and Local Moran's I statistics.
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Construct indicators of UK inward & outward FDI flows in the Creative Industries using project-level data from the ORBIS Crossborder Investment database.
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Estimate the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) of the UK Creative Industries using country-level exports of creative goods and services drawn from UNCTAD statistics.
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Collect and structure financial data into a research database using the Bloomberg Terminal.
Researcher
2019 - 2021
Foundation for Thailand Productivity Institute
Bangkok, Thailand
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Lead evaluation of TQA-awarded firm performance using multi-factor productivity measurement, contributing to evidence on the returns to quality accreditation.
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Author a blog post and a research poster on productivity and industry 4.0
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Contribute to Future Thailand, IPST and NBTC performance evaluation.
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Coordinate FTPI-APO internal training
Education
Newcastle University
2021 - 2025
PhD, Economics
Thesis Title: Essays on the Economics of Green Transition
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
University of Nottingham
2018 - 2019
MSc, Economics and International Economics
Nottingham, UK
Kasetsart University
2014 - 2018
BSc, Economics (English Programme)
Bangkok, Thailand
Scholarships and Awards
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Newcastle University Doctoral College Thesis Prize (May 2026)
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3MT Competition (2nd Prize), Newcastle University Business School, UK (May 2022)
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Peter and Nora Lomas PhD Scholarship in Economics, Newcastle University, UK (July 2021-2024)
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Academic Scholarship (ASEAN Masters), University of Nottingham, UK (November 2018)
Publications
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​Fazio G., Maioli S., Rujimora N. (2024). Building back greener, levelling-up or both? An assessment of the economic and environmental efficiency transition of UK regions. Papers in Regional Science, 103(6), 100053.​ ​
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Fazio G., Maioli S., Rujimora N. (2024). The twin innovation transitions of European regions. Regional Studies, 1-19.
Skills & Expertise
Economic & Statistical Analysis
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Causal Inference (ATT, Staggered & Reversible DiDs, PSM, Doubly Robust Estimator)
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Econometrics Analysis (TWFE)
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Network Analysis (Centrality Metrics, Mapping, Directed & Undirected)
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Spatial Analysis (Mapping, Global and Local Moran's I, Spatial Transition)
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Principal Component Analysis
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Fuzzy String Matching (Levenshtein)
Data Science Techniques
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Deep Learning for NLP
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Text Classification (BERT, Transformers, PyTorch, SetFit few-shot)
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Topic Modelling (BERTopic, UMAP, HDBSCAN, Ollama-powered LLMs)
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Data Imputation (CART and RF)
Software & Tools
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R (Programming Language)
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Python (Programming Language)
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Quarto
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APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
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MobaXterm (SLURM / High-Performance Computing)
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Ollama-powered LLMs