Dr Nikolai Kazantsev
Dr Nikolai Kazantsev is a research associate at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge.
Nikolai’s interdisciplinary research interests focus on system-level methodologies to develop, reconfigure, and deploy manufacturing and service capacities across supply chains. This work aims to enhance British society’s resilience in the face of future pandemics and other catastrophic disruptions from the National Risk Register (2023) by quickly forming emergency consortia across local supply chains.
Arguing against the misleading notion of a ‘post-pandemic world’, in the presence of ever-mutating viruses and climate change, Nikolai proposes reconsidering the lessons learned from Covid-19, including local production inefficiencies of items of critical need, through the lens of system dynamics. His simulation results show that future preparedness against such risks will go beyond stockpiling towards the capacity reconfiguration of the regional supply chains to produce a limited number of urgently needed products (e.g., masks, sanitizers, water filters) and buffer related demand shocks for more complex production, like ventilators. The new citizen-focused methodology allows households to increase their autonomy, access easy-to-scale emergency production, and avoid the adverse impacts of catastrophic risks, such as lengthy lockdowns.
At the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), Nikolai been working on the research programmes “Elastic manufacturing systems—a platform for dynamic, resilient and cost-effective manufacturing services” , “Made Smarter Connected Factories Centre (MSCF)” and RASCAL (Resilience in Agrifood Systems Supply Chain Configuration Analytics Lab). From the start of his fellowship at Clare Hall, he delivered outcomes to the government agencies, including COBR, Resilience Directorate, UK HSA, DHSC, Dept for Education, National Audit Office, among others, supported by the Cambridge Center for Science and Policy (CSaP).
In his spare time, Nikolai is also a cellist, completing a recording of JS Bach’s Six Suites (BVW 1007-1012) in 2025. The list of available recordings: Suite 1, Suite 2, Suite 3, Suite 4. His college duties also include pastoral support as a tutor for the selected cohort of postdoctoral students.
Select publications
- Kazantsev, N., Agca, A. O., Mate, O. A., Chatha, K., & Godsell, J. (2025). Strategic shame management–Leveraging individual footprints to nudge Sustainable Development Goal 12. Sustainable Production and Consumption. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550925000922
- Ho, W. R., Kazantsev, N., & Netland, T. (2024). The Critical Catalyst: Getting Open Innovation Projects Right in Times of Disruption. California Management Review, 67(1), 96-113. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00081256241277238
- Kazantsev, N., Batolas, D., & White, L. (2024). Managing asymmetries for data mobilization under digital transformation. British Journal of Management, 35(2), 663-678. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8551.12809
- Kazantsev, N., DeBellis, M., Quboa, Q., Sampaio, P., Mehandjiev, N., & Stalker, I. D. (2024). An ontology-guided approach to process formation and coordination of demand-driven collaborations. International Journal of Production Research, 62(9), 3398-3414. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00207543.2023.2242508
- Kazantsev, N., Petrovskyi, O., & Müller, J. M. (2023). From supply chains towards manufacturing ecosystems: A system dynamics model. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 197, 122917. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162523006029
- Kazantsev, N., DeBellis, M., Mehandjiev M., Sampaio P., Quboa Q., Stalker I.D. Ontology-driven product assembly in low-volume high-variability production systems. International Journal of Production Research (ahead-of-print)
- Kazantsev N., Islam N., Zwiegelaar J., Brown A.W., and Maull R. (2023). Data sharing for business model innovation in platform ecosystems: From private data to public good, Technology Forecasting and Social Change
- Romanov D., Molokanov V., Kazantsev N and Jha A.K. (2023). Removing Bias from Decision Making Systems: A Machine Learning Method to Detect and Eliminate Order Effects, Decision Support Systems (ABS level 3)
- Wan X., Jha A.K., Kazantsev N. and Boh W. F. (2023) Online to Offline Platforms: Examining the Effects of Demand-side Usage on Supply-side Decisions. Information & Management (ABS level 3)
- Kazantsev, N., Pishchulov, G., Mehandjiev, N., Sampaio, P., and Zolkiewski, J. (2022) Investigating barriers to demand-driven SME collaboration in low-volume high-variability manufacturing. Supply Chain Management: an International Journal.
- Muller J. and Kazantsev N. (Eds.). (2022). Industry 4.0 and SMEs – Drivers, Barriers and Opportunities for integration from around the globe, Taylor & Francis.
Select Awards
- 2021 – Alliance Manchester Business School – Best doctoral paper award
- 2019 – Association for Information Systems – Doctoral Service Award
- 2019 – British Academy of Management – Best doctoral paper – Highly Commended
- 2018 – British Academy of Management – Best developmental paper
Further links
University profile & contacts: https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/people/nk622/
My current project: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/funding-success-manufacturing-metaverse
Research papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LCWTqc4AAAAJ&hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikas/
