2027 John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award and Corporate Governance Symposium, University of Delaware (Up to Three $10,000 Prizes)

The John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and the Department of Finance at the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics, University of Delaware, in collaboration with Management Science and the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), will host an in-person corporate governance symposium on campus in Newark, Delaware, on Friday, 12 March 2027, together with the John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award competition.

The competition continues the tradition of the IRRC Institute's Investor Research Paper Award and has been run at the University of Delaware since the 2019-20 academic year. The 2026 edition, the seventh, selected its winners from nearly 100 submissions. The 2027 keynote speaker is Professor Wei Jiang of Emory University's Goizueta Business School and 2026 President of the American Finance Association.

Submissions should address topics in corporate governance and related areas that provide insights relevant to policymakers, investors, directors, executives and other decision makers. Papers may be theoretical, empirical, legal, policy-oriented or interdisciplinary in approach, so corporate law and securities regulation scholarship is within scope.

The call is open to academics and practitioners; the organisers state: "We especially encourage submissions from early-career researchers and emerging scholars." No nationality or institutional restriction is stated, so Indian researchers and practitioners may submit.

There are two categories:

• Academic paper category: up to two winning papers.
• Practitioner paper category: one winning paper.

• Papers must not have been accepted for publication at the time of submission.
• Submit with a cover page carrying the paper title, the full names and affiliations of all authors, and an abstract of 100-250 words.
• For academic papers selected as finalists, at least one author must attend and present the paper in person at the symposium on the University of Delaware campus on 12 March 2027.

• Academic papers: non-refundable submission fee of USD 100 per paper, paid online through the University of Delaware payment page before submitting.
• Practitioner papers: no fee.

Academic papers: first pay the USD 100 submission fee on the University of Delaware payment page, then submit the paper through the official Google Form, entering the fee payment receipt number with your submission. Deadline: 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time on 18 November 2026 (10:29 am IST on 19 November 2026).

Practitioner papers: email the paper to the Weinberg Center at weinberg-corp-gov@udel.edu by midnight Eastern Time on 31 December 2026. The winning practitioner paper is expected to be announced on or before 12 March 2027.

The University of Delaware page states that winning papers are featured in the Weinberg Center's SSRN Research Paper Series, and that the Center may offer to publish the winning practitioner paper in its Occasional Paper Series and may invite its authors to present at upcoming Weinberg Center events.

The ECGI announcement of the 2027 symposium adds that the symposium programme committee will recommend a subset of submitted papers to the collaborating Management Science editors (Bo Becker and Daniel Ferreira), who may invite some of them to a "no-fault" dual-submission process; submission to the symposium does not require submission to the journal, and papers rejected through the dual submission may later be resubmitted to the journal without prejudice.