F&E CWEL supports and disseminates research that focuses on the economic value that women, as business leaders, create. We do this through our International Diana Initiatives.
The Diana International Research Institute (DIRI) is the premier global research institute dedicated to being the source of all research, policy, practitioner, and educator information for women’s entrepreneurship. By supporting and connecting a worldwide community of stakeholders, we bring together the brightest minds conducting, translating, and disseminating rigorous research and data about women’s entrepreneurship that can directly impact teaching, policy, and practice.
Empowering women entrepreneurs will create jobs, increase incomes, lift thousands of households out of poverty, and lead to greater economic and social transformation. Even though 224 million women entrepreneurs run businesses around the world, there are only seven countries where men and women start businesses at an equal rate. Globally, women own about 30 percent of the businesses currently operating, but only employ around 6 percent of the workforce.
Imagine then, how women entrepreneurs could shift the economic trajectory of the world, if we better understood how to enable them to launch and grow successful ventures through research. Despite the significance and size of this potential impact, scholarly research including or focusing on women entrepreneurs comprises less than 10% of all academic studies. This means that most of what we know about entrepreneurship is based almost exclusively on research about men. We lack research that allows us to understand the differences between men and women in the ways they start, lead, or grow their ventures.
Without research and data, designing effective policies and programs for women entrepreneurs that will meet their needs is nearly impossible. To solve this problem, we proposed the creation of The Diana International Research Institute, the first, and only, research institute in the world dedicated to studying women’s entrepreneurship. The Institute would comprise the following:
The Diana International Research Institute Membership Organization convenes and connects a global community to collectively identify, investigate, and share best practices that lead to further research and practical approaches supporting women entrepreneurs and their businesses. Learn more about it here.
The F&E CWEL and Babson boast a lively, supportive and growing community of faculty who do innovative research on women and gender, leadership and entrepreneurship. Learn more about it here.
Women’s Entrepreneurship: Implications for Policy
We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Diana International Research Conference and take place in Stockholm, Sweden from June 1–3, 2024 with the theme of “Women’s Entrepreneurship: Implications for Policy.” The conference will be co-hosted by the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research Institute (ESBRI).
Learn more about the Diana International Research Conference and our Call for Papers
The Diana International Research Institute Impact Day is the first global convening of researchers, educators, investors, policymakers, women entrepreneurs, and other disrupters who are dedicated to advancing women's entrepreneurship. Find out more about the one-day event and the report that came out of it, here.
A new report released by Babson's Frank & Eileen™ Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership calls for new models of funding for entrepreneurial women and documentation of the continued disparity in funding by gender.
Download the ReportThe Diana International Research Institute (DIRI) established a membership organization to convene and connect a global community of researchers, educators, practitioners, and policymakers to collectively identify, investigate, and share best practices while developing practical approaches to further research and action on women entrepreneurs and their businesses.
Join a global community to share best practices and develop practical approaches to further research and action on women entrepreneurs. Click to learn more about our membership program.
Learn MoreThe Diana International Membership Organization is a global community of researchers, educators, policymakers and other entrepreneurial stakeholders who collectively identify, investigate, and share best practices while developing practical approaches to further research and action on women entrepreneurs and their businesses.
Members are:
Through engagement in the Diana International Research Institute
Learn more about membership and it's benefits, here.
The Diana International Research Conference brings together more than 100 scholars worldwide, providing a forum to share global research dedicated to gender and women’s entrepreneurship.
Hosted by Babson College, the 2023 Diana Conference will provide scholars with an exciting new conference experience. Delegates will have opportunities to participate in a range of innovative sessions comprising plenaries, facilitated critical synopsis, roundtable, and themed panel discussions. There will also be opportunities for scholars to debate early-stage—novel but potentially ground-breaking research ideas—with the international Diana community.
The conference theme is “Women's Entrepreneurship: Exploring Diversity of Experiences and Impact.” Recent scholarship has acknowledged that there is significant heterogeneity and diversity in women’s entrepreneurship. Building on this new reality, the 2023 Conference seeks conceptual and empirical papers that consider the diversity of women’s entrepreneurship with regards to context, processes and individuals.
The inaugural Diana International Research Institute Impact Day was held at Babson College in Wellesley, MA and brought together over 200 researchers, policy-makers, practitioners, entrepreneurs, and educators. These stakeholders provided a multi-faceted picture of the challenges women entrepreneurs face in working through conventional models of financing to acquire growth capital. The event culminated in report that calls for new models of funding for entrepreneurial women and documentation of the continued disparity in funding by gender.
The Diana Project International supports and connects the community of scholars dedicated to the study of women’s entrepreneurship and their businesses, and provides a forum for scholarly debate, presentation and dissemination of this research, translation into teaching, policy and practice. These aims align directly with the aims of the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, which occupies a unique position within scholarly research as the only journal focusing on Entrepreneurship in the context of Gender.