2026 Corporate Governance Symposium and John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award Competition

The John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and the Department of Finance at the Lerner College of Business & Economics, University of Delaware, in collaboration with ECGI, will host an in-person academic symposium on Friday, 6 March 2026. We welcome all submissions broadly related to corporate governance. Up to three papers included in the symposium will be selected to each receive the 2026 John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award and a $10,000 prize. For past symposium programs and award winners, please visit: https://weinberg.udel.edu/research-paper-competition. 

Both academic and practitioner submissions for the research paper competition are welcome.

The deadline for paper submissions is midnight, Eastern Standard Time, 16 November, 2025. There is a non-refundable submission fee of $100 per paper. Please pay the submission fee by going to http://www.udel.edu/weinberg-irrci-paper. (If the link does not work, please copy and paste this link in your browser.) Please submit your papers to Nicole Rich at Weinberg-corp-gov@udel.edu, together with a copy of your payment receipt.

John L.  Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper $10,000 Award Competition Guidelines/Procedures

This research competition is the successor to the IRRCi Investor Research Paper Award, which had become a prominent award garnering significant attention amongst the investment community, academia and policymakers. The John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award, as its predecessor did, highlights innovative research. 

Papers should be submitted using the following guidelines.  Failure to comply with these guidelines may disqualify papers.

• Papers must not have been accepted for publication at the time of submission.
• Papers should be submitted with a cover page that includes the paper title, full name and affiliation of author(s), and a 100-250-word abstract.
• Please use the following format as the file name when you save your paper:  Last name (all caps), underscore, shortened name of paper, period, pdf (e.g., DOE_Shareholder Engagement.pdf). 

If selected for the award or as a finalist, it is required that one of the paper’s authors be available to present the paper in-person at the Symposium on 6 March, 2026.

General inquiries regarding the competition or the Symposium should be directed to Nicole Rich at Weinberg-corp-gov@udel.edu. 

Please note that the selection of winners/finalists, if any, is at the sole discretion of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. The Weinberg Center fully anticipates awarding up to three $10,000 prizes but reserves the right to select no papers as winners in the event papers submitted do not meet the above guidelines and/or the Center does not believe any paper is worthy of the award.