Last modified: Thursday, May 25, 2006
IU's Kelley School hosting world’s leading entrepreneurship research conference June 7-10
Event being held in Midwest for first time
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 25, 2006
EDITORS: Registration for the BCERC is for authors of accepted abstracts and by invitation only. Media who would like to cover the BCERC need to get in touch with the contacts listed elsewhere on this release.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's Kelley School of Business will host the world's leading entrepreneurship research conference on June 7-10 and is a co-sponsor with Babson College, the annual event's founder.
The 2006 Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference will involve 320 researchers from 29 countries. More than 200 research papers will be presented during the four-day event. Nearly 550 abstracts were submitted for consideration.
Founded by Babson, BCERC is considered by many to be the premier entrepreneurship research conference in the world. The publication Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research contains the proceedings of the conference and is the most comprehensive collection of empirical research papers on entrepreneurship.
"For the Kelley School of Business to be selected as the host institution is a real tribute to the commitment that we've made to entrepreneurship and also to all the great professors that we have here," said Donald F. Kuratko, executive director of the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and innovation and the Jack M. Gill Chair of Entrepreneurship at IU. "That's what leads Babson to select their host schools."
This will be the first time since the event's founding in 1981 that it has been held away from the coasts and in the Midwest. "It's a chance to showcase the beauty of our campus and what Indiana University really is to all of the people coming from all over the world," Kuratko added. Next year's BCERC will be held at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain.
Andrew Zacharakis, John H. Muller Jr. Chair for Entrepreneurship at Babson, said the Kelley School is an appropriate setting for this year's program. "We are pleased to be partnering with Indiana on the 2006 conference. The Kelley School is an ideal co-host as it boasts some of the finest entrepreneurship professors in the world," Zacharakis said, adding, "On a personal note, I'm looking forward to returning to my MBA alma mater."
While the majority of entrepreneurship scholars in attendance will come from the United States and other Western or G8 countries, the roster of conference presenters attests that entrepreneurship is an established academic discipline worldwide. Countries represented by authors at the conference are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In addition to the conference, the Kelley School of Business will hold the 2006 BCERC Doctoral Consortium Program, which provides doctoral students with the opportunity to gain insight into current research issues through intense interaction with consortium faculty. Approximately 30 doctoral students from 10 countries are expected to participate.
Hosted in conjunction with the BCERC since 1985, the consortium also seeks to encourage scholars and educators to become leaders in the field of entrepreneurship education. This year's consortium is sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works with partners to advance entrepreneurship in America. The Kauffman Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Information about the Kauffman Foundation is available at https://www.kauffman.org.
