Annual Research Conference
2025 DIRC
Established in 2003 by five founding scholars, the Babson College Diana International Research Conference is the premier international research conference on women’s entrepreneurship, gathering a collaborative network of researchers studying women’s entrepreneurship from more than 40 countries.
It has been cited as one of the “top 1% most important meeting places” in the academic field of entrepreneurship studies.
The 2025 Diana International Research Conference will be co-hosted with The Aotearoa Centre for Enterprising Women at the University of Auckland.
Thinking of Attending? Hear from our 2024 Participants!
| Key Dates | |
|---|---|
| December 4, 2024 | Abstract Submissions Due 11:59 p.m. ET |
| March 10, 2025 | Notification of Decision Sent to Authors |
| April 2025 | Registration Opens |
| July 1-4, 2025 | Conference at the University of Auckland/Aotearoa Centre for Enterprising Women |
| July 1, 2025 | Doctoral Colloquium/Arrival Day and Evening Reception |
| July 2-3, 2025 | Academic Research Conference |
| July 4, 2025 | Impact Day |
Entrepreneurship at the Edge:
Extending the Boundaries of Gender and Entrepreneurship
Women’s entrepreneurship is limitless and should know no boundaries. It is estimated that women enter entrepreneurship at 80% the rate of men, yet women who run and own established businesses is significantly lower at 68% (2022/23 GEM Women’s Report). Whilst the boundaries enabling start-up may have shifted to facilitate greater parity for women entrepreneurs, there still remain limits within entrepreneurial ecosystems on their capacity to survive, thrive and experience full inclusiveness.
Second, our pre-occupation with researching gender and entrepreneurship, despite recent attention afforded to intersectionality (Marlow & Martinez Dy, 2018) has remained somewhat mainstream, Westernized and ‘safe.’ Understanding how gender and entrepreneurship is enacted on peripheries, within diverse communities and rich cultures and by people (women, transgender, non-binary) who not fit traditional stereotypes can offer much promise for developing this field.
With this Call, we seek contributions that extend research to explore entrepreneurship at the edge, encouraging us to broaden the entrepreneurial landscape in our examination of how gender influences entrepreneurial access, survival and growth. The 2025 Conference seeks conceptual and empirical papers that consider under-explored contexts, populations and approaches that embrace the use of leading edge methodologies that push the boundaries of what we already know or apply cutting-edge theories to explore research questions.
More specifically, invited topics may include but are not restricted to:
- Women’s entrepreneurship in and across contexts: global, multi-cultural, geographic, community, family, industrial, sectoral, cultural and institutional
- Women-led businesses: characteristics (e.g. size, technology, innovation, form, growth trajectory)
- Women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial processes: organizing, launching, developing, financing, managing, growing and exiting
- Intersections of individual and social differences for women entrepreneurs: skills, competencies, race, class, ethnicity, socio-cultural, experiences, education
- Indigenous women entrepreneurs
- Research informed teaching in gender and entrepreneurship
- Pedagogical innovations in teaching women entrepreneurs and women’s entrepreneurship
- Women entrepreneurship policies: Requirements and lessons for successful policy transfer
We encourage papers that explore new research ideas, adopt novel methodological approaches and contribute to theory development to help advance the field and pave the way for an exciting future research agenda for the Diana community.
2025 Conference Chairs
- Candida Brush, Babson College, U.S.
- Amanda Elam, Babson College, U.S.
- Diana Hechavarria, Babson College, U.S.
- Christine Woods, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- Janine Swail, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- Anne de Bruin, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Editorial Review Board
- Anne de Bruin, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- Gry Alsos, Nord University, Norway
- Haya al Dajanai, MBSC, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- José Ernesto Amorós Espinosa, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
- Karen Hughes, University of Alberta, Canada
- Natanya Meyer, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
The Diana International Research Conference is the premier research conference for an international community of scholars to convene and share research that directly impacts theory, practice, education, and policy for women entrepreneurs worldwide.
Since 2003, Diana International Research Conferences have brought together scholars from more than 47 countries worldwide, providing a platform to share a global research agenda dedicated to asking and answering questions about women entrepreneurs. The 14th Diana International Research Conference was held at Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland in 2022, and the 15th annual conference will be held in 2023 at Babson College, Wellesley, Mass., USA.
The research conferences are sponsored by the Diana International Research Institute, the permanent home of the Diana Project™, a global consortium of researchers who engage in scholarship, forums, and education focusing on gendered ecosystems, women entrepreneurs and their business growth. Established in 1999 by Professors Brush, Carter, Gatewood, Greene, and Hart—in partnership with ESBRI, Stockholm, the Diana Project has led the research agenda in women’s entrepreneurship across continents, cultures, and contexts.
The Conference is typically two days, beginning with an evening reception on the first day that attendees arrive. In addition to organizing the plenary and parallel paper sessions, the co-sponsoring institution is responsible for organizing one reception, one gala dinner, one breakfast, and one lunch. However, the conference schedule, number of days and presentations, and day of gala dinner can be flexible depending on the number of attendees, and program design of co-sponsor.
| Kick-Off |
|---|
| Restaurant Tours |
| Welcome from the Co-hosting Institution |
| Day 1 | |
|---|---|
| 0915 | Welcome (Co-hosts and their Institutions) |
| 0930 | Opening Plenary (Keynote Speaker + a panel with industry - including female entrepreneurs + academics) |
| 1100 | Coffee & Networking |
| 1130 | Paper Sessions (1) (3 x traditional sessions with 4 papers in each; grouped by theme/topic; 15 mins per presenter + Q & A; Three session chairs needed) |
| 1300 | Lunch |
| 1400 | Paper Sessions (2) (3 x traditional sessions with 4 papers in each; grouped by theme/topic; 15 mins per presenter + Q & A; Three session chairs needed) |
| 1515 | Coffee & Networking |
| 1600 | Paper Sessions (3) (3 x traditional sessions with 4 papers in each; grouped by theme/topic; 15 mins per presenter + Q & A; Three session chairs needed) |
| 1730 | Get Ready for the Diana Dinner Celebration |
| 2000 | The 2023 Diana Dinner Celebration |
| Day 2 | |
|---|---|
| 0900 | Paper Sessions (4) (3 x traditional sessions with 4 papers in each; grouped by theme/topic; 15 mins per presenter + Q & A; Three session chairs needed) |
| 1030 | Coffee & Networking |
| 1100 | Paper Sessions (5) (3 x traditional sessions with 4 papers in each; grouped by theme/topic; 15 mins per presenter + Q & A; Three session chairs needed) |
| 1230 | Poster Session |
| 1330 | Final Wrap-up, Key Take-Aways & Future Directions (Event Co-hosts and Co-hosts for the next year) |
| 1400 | Lunch (‘Stay and Enjoy' or ‘Get it to go’) Closing Reception |
| 1800 | Sip and Shop, or event at a special location Welcome from the Co-hosting Institution |
| Day 3 |
|---|
| This half-day event is tied to the theme of the annual conference, and features speakers, panels and a workshop to collectively explore practical solutions, develop best practices, and generate needed policy solutions to leverage one of the largest economic opportunities of our time. More than 100 scholars from around the world attend the first two days of the Diana International Research Conference, dedicated to the presentation of academic research related to women’s entrepreneurship. On day three, Impact Day, an additional 100 action-oriented stakeholders are expected to join. We expect three outcomes:
|
The Diana Project was internationalized in 2003, when the first Diana International Conference was held in Stockholm, Sweden, hosting 25 participants from 10 countries. The mailing list of scholars participating in the Diana International Conferences includes over 600 scholars from 47 countries who have submitted papers or attended the events since 2003. Over the years, Diana International scholars have published nine, soon to be 10, edited volumes of academic research on women’s entrepreneurship around the world (Edward Elgar Publishing), in addition to nine special issues of top entrepreneurship research journals.1
Previous special issues emerging from Diana International Conferences devoted to gender and women’s entrepreneurship include three issues of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (2006 and 2007, edited by de Bruin, Brush and Welter in 2006 and 2007; and 2012, edited by Hughes & Jennings) as well one special issue for Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 2012 (edited by Cooper and McGowan), and one special issue on women entrepreneurs and ecosystems in Small Business Economics 2018 (edited by Edelman, Manolova, Brush, Welter). The most recent special issue was released in January 2019, high growth women’s entrepreneurship, in the Journal of Small Business Management. Together these special issues generated more than 60 submissions and did much to consolidate existing scholarship in this area to date. These articles are highly cited: the special issue of ET&P (2007) has over 4,000 citations with a number of individual articles in the special issues having more than 1,000 citations including those.