The Australian Research Council (ARC) has announced the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellows for 2025, including the University of Melbourne’s Dr Siqi Pan.
Dr Pan, a senior lecturer in economics in the Faculty of Business and Economics, has received the fellowship and more than $488,000 in funding over three years for her project, ‘Matching by Characteristics: Simplification for Efficiency and Fairness’.
Her project was one of just three successful applications in the field of economics. Dr Pan is honoured to have been selected by ARC for the scheme.
“I understand that the selection process is highly competitive and unpredictable, so I felt extremely fortunate and pleasantly surprised when I received the news,” said Dr Pan.
Her project focuses on the design of market institutions in matching environments, such as university admissions and employment.
“These are matching markets where transactions are primarily driven by preferences: you don’t just care about the price, but also about whom you transact with.”
Using school choice as an example, she explains that when participants, such as school leavers choosing a university, are required to submit a perfectly ranked list of preferences, the process is costly and cognitively demanding. This often results in incomplete submissions rendering the algorithm ineffective and exacerbating inequality.
“Fair and efficient allocation is key to achieving equitable outcomes in such markets,” said Dr Pan.
“Disadvantaged groups are particularly affected, as they frequently face additional challenges in acquiring the necessary information. This project aims to address this implementation issue by testing a novel framework based on desirable characteristics rather than strict rankings.”
Through field and lab experiments, Dr Pan will investigate the efficacy of this approach in enhancing both efficiency and equity. The anticipated outcomes include a user-friendly matching framework and prototypes of tools that can be applied to a wide range of contexts, including refugee resettlement, school choice, employment, and public housing allocation.
“My research has the potential to inform policy and reduce disparities in access to education, employment, and other resources between advantaged and disadvantaged communities.”
Read more about Dr Siqi Pan's research
Alongside combining both experimental and theoretical approaches in her work, Dr Pan also draws on valuable insights from other disciplines such as mathematics, psychology and computer science.
She said she was immediately drawn to the field in the third year of her PhD in Economics when she took a course on market design.
“It was the first time I saw how closely theory could influence real-world policy and the critical importance of incorporating practical and behavioural considerations when addressing implementation challenges.”
Long-term, she aspires to become a leading researcher in the field of behavourial market design, particularly focusing on addressing fundamental implementation challenges faced by practitioners in Australia and abroad.
“This fellowship will provide me with unique career-enhancing opportunities, including greater exposure to collaborators and mentors, both in Australia and internationally, as well as access to funding, resources, and dedicated time and space to focus on my research. This will enable me to establish a record of independent, innovative, and high-quality research.”
Dr Pan is a member of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Market Design. In 2023, she collaborated with Professor Tom Wilkening, Dr Georgy Artemov, Associate Professor Ivan Balbuzanov, and Associate Professor Alexandru Nichifor to establish the Lab for the Practical Applications of Mechanism and Matching Theory, securing the FBE Research Laboratory Fund.