Since 2001, we’ve been proud sponsors of the University of Edinburgh Credit Research Centre’s Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference, with The Paragon Award.

Biannually, in line with the conference, the award goes to the best paper, judged by an industry panel on their relevance and practical application.

2021 winners

In 2021, Ivelina Nilsson and Thomas Clarke from 4most won the award for their paper 'Modelling the Impact of Climate Change Physical Risk on Mortgage Credit’. The judges were particularly impressed by the approach to modelling direct and indirect impacts of climate change, with the example case study to illustrate modelled expected losses to bring this hottest of topics to life. 

Every year, the standards are extremely high across hundreds of papers, making judging both a tricky and extremely rewarding task; and winning a significant accolade. 2021 alone saw 123 papers submitted.

Past winners

2019 Andy Johnson, and Joanne Gorringe, Leeds Building Society | Modelling behavioural life of retail mortgages: aligning financial disciplines with credit portfolio management

2017 Ellen Tobback, University of Antwerp | Retail credit scoring using fine-grained payment data

2015 Jonathan Budd and Professor Peter Taylor, University of Melbourne | Calculating optimal limits for transacting credit card customers

2013 Bailey Klinger and Carlos del Caripo, Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, and Asim Khwaja, Harvard University | Improving credit risk analysis with psychometrics

2011 David Molyneaux & Johan Jansen van Rensburg, FICO | Economic impact grade migration modelling - to address pro-cyclicality in current risk management practice

2009 Gerald Fahner, FICO | Estimating causal effects of credit decisions using propensity score methodologies

2007 Rob Stine, Wharton School | Space-time models for retail credit

2005 Alan Forrest, Dunfermline Building Society | Low default portfolios – theory and practice

2003 Alan Lucas, Rhino Risk | A constrained scorecard development approach

2001 Bob Oliver, Fair Isaac | Risk based pricing - some early results

Abstracts and information about past papers are available on the CRC website.