Business Angels Thesis Award Competition

EBAN promotes and rewards outstanding postgraduate thesis practical implications research. High-quality impact & practical research are the foundation to engage and strengthen its role between researchers and practitioners/policy-makers.

EBAN’s Business Angels Thesis Award Competition is open to all former students (Master’s and PhD) who have written original, innovative dissertations and completed their thesis about Business Angel’s investment-related topics. The Thesis must have a significant impact on the field. This award is open to all former students from European universities who have graduated in the recent 24 months (i.e., in 2022 or 2023). Award applications and the related research work should focus on Business Angel topics specifically, with practical contributions to policy reform.

Application instructions

Executive summary Focus/Criteria

All Executive Summaries will be evaluated by and must clearly focus on the following key points:

• Is the topic worthy of study, and is the problem significantly about early-stage investments and Business Angels investment-related issues 
• Relevance and practical Contribution of the work to the discipline 
• Academic quality and Originality of Research 
• How well-executed was the research – using both proper research design and analysis tools?  
• Impact / practical contribution the research makes to the private equity sector
• Clarity of writing and organizational style

Formatting

A short executive summary must be received in the following format and include:

• A title page followed by the body of the paper (short executive summary)
• A four to six (4-6) page double-spaced short executive summary. Content for the short executive summary must focus on the evaluation criteria and primarily include the following:

1. 1. • A Short introduction stating the purpose of the research, its relevance to early-stage investments, and Business Angel’s investment-related issues 
      • The research questions, and how well are the results logically derived from the problem statement and research design, with the answers to the research questions making a significant contribution?
      • The key research methods
      • A conclusion explaining the essential findings and significant practical contribution of the research to early-stage investments and Business Angels investment-related issues 

Jury

• 

  Luisa Alemany

  Associate Professor of Management Practice,
  London Business School

  Luisa Alemany is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and the Academic Director of its Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital. She was formerly at ESADE Business School and a Visiting Professor at Saïd Business School (Oxford). She is a Fellow at St Hugh’s College (U. Oxford). Her main areas of interest are Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Philanthropy. She is a director on the board of Newton Venture Program and she sits on the Investment Committee of Oxfam’s Enterprise Development Program and DeepTech VC fund Fond-ICO Next Tech in Spain. She is also part of the Advisory Committee of FMO Ventures, the Dutch development fund. Her book, together with J. Andreoli, “Entrepreneurial Finance: The Art and Science of Growing Ventures” (Cambridge University Press, 2018), was the first European textbook on the topic and was awarded “Most Promising New Textbook” by TTA in 2021. She holds a PhD in Economics & Business from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and an MBA from Stanford University (USA).

   

• 

  Colin Mason

  Professor of Entrepreneurship,
  University of Glasgow

  Colin Mason is Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. He previously held a Chair in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde and before that was at the University of Southampton.

  He has held visiting positions at universities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina, most recently University of Otago, University of Adelaide and University of South Australia. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada).

  His research is on entrepreneurship and regional development with specific research focus on entrepreneurial finance, specifically business angel investing, and on entrepreneurial ecosystems. His research has a strong policy and practitioner focus and he has engaged with numerous external organizations and government, including Canada’s National Angel Capital Association (NACO), HM Treasury (Patient Capital review), Scottish Government, European Commission, Eurochambres, InterTrade Ireland, Growth Analysis (Sweden) and OECD. He was joint winner of the ESRC’s 2015 Outstanding Impact in Business award and the 2018 Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division Entrepreneurship Practice Award both (with Richard Harrison) for his research on business angels. He was a member of the 2021 REF Business and Management Panel.

   

• 

  Rudy Aernoudt

  Professor of Corporate Finance,
  Ghent University

  Rudy  has an outstanding International and European experience (MIT, OECD, European commission, European Council and European Social and Economic Committee). He, what is unique, occupied Chief of Staff (Director of Cabinet) positions at different governance levels (Europe, Belgium, Flanders, Wallonia). He served in the Belgian government as Secretary-General for Economy, Science and Innovation, he was director- general of OLPC (one laptop per child, spinoff MIT) and curator TEDx Brussels.

  Actually, he is professor Corporate Finance at the universities of Ghent and Nancy and affiliate professor at the BMI – MBA program (founded by HEC Paris and Louvain Management School). He holds Masters (triple cum laude) in Thomistic Philosophy (University of Leuven), in Industrial and Monetary Economy (University of Leuven) and in European economy (college of Europe). Co-founder of EBAN, the European Business Angels Network, founder of FREE (the Foundation for the Research on Education and Entrepreneurship), founder of Growth Academy for Enterprises and European Chair of the WBAF (world Business Angel Forum). Besides, he is columnist (FD Magazine, CXO and Trends) and author of several books (40+) and papers (500+) on corporate finance, politics and economics. He published in Journals such as Small Business economics, Journal of Entrepreneurial Culture, Venture Capital & Ekonomiaz. Besides, he is columnist (FD Magazine, CXO and Trends) and author of several books (40+) and papers (500+) on corporate finance, politics and economics. He published in Journals such as Small Business economics, Journal of Entrepreneurial Culture, Venture Capital & Ekonomiaz. His handbooks ‘Financial Management in Practice’ and ‘Entrepreneurship, no guts, no glory’ (both Intersentia Cambridge) are widely used both in academic and business world. He expressed his vision on the future of Belgium is his book: ‘Corona crisis: an electroshock for Belgium?’ (in French & Dutch) and on Europe is his book ‘Europe: Towards a new impetus post-Brexit’ (2023).

  He received several awards (price for democracy Aron-Condorcet, political mood Belgium, best regional entrepreneurship plan Europe, WBAIF world-award for advancing the agenda for Business Angels).

   

• 

  José Martí Pellón

  Full Professor of Finance,
  Complutense Madrid

  José Martí is full professor of finance at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he also obtained is PhD in Business in 1987. He teaches Corporate Finance (Graduate and postgraduate levels) and Venture Capital (VC) & Private Equity (PE) (Postgraduate courses). He has followed the Spanish VC & PE industry since its inception, creating databases on VC & PE, hybrid debt instruments and now enlarging the focus to business angels. He founded Webcapitalriesgo to support this data collection process. He is data contributor to the Spanish (SpainCAP) and European (Invest Europe) VC & PE associations and member of the operational board of the European Data Cooperative (EDC).

  His research focus is private equity and entrepreneurial finance. He has published in all top entrepreneurial finance and policy-related journals on topics such as determinants of fundraising, impact of or participative loans and VC on growth or productivity, links between family firms and VC, or assessment of value added by VC firms, among others. He is currently analyzing VC exits and starting to focus on business angels and their interaction with other sources of entrepreneurial finance.

   

• 

  Yan Alperovych

  Associate Professor of Corporate Finance,
  Emlyon business school

  Yan holds the Associate Professor of Corporate Finance position with emlyon business school.
  He obtained his PhD from University of Liège in 2011, where he worked as FNRS-FRFC research fellow during 2007-2011. Yan’s research interests are in the area of entrepreneurial finance with a special focus on policy initiatives supporting young and innovative firms. His work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Corporate Finance (2022), Journal of Financial Economics (2021), Research Policy (2020), Economic Bulletin (2020, 2018), Venture Capital (2018), Journal of Business Venturing (2015), and alike. He has also won several best paper awards such as the FMA Applied Finance Conference Best Paper Award (2017), the Coller Institute of Venture (Runner-up Prize, 2016), the Best Paper in Corporate and Entrepreneurial Finance award (AFFI, 2016).

   

• 

  Veroniek Collewaert

  Full Professor of Entrepreneurship and Partner,
  Vlerick Business School, KU Leuven

  Veroniek Collewaert is Full Professor of Entrepreneurship and Partner at Vlerick Business School. She is also affiliated with KU Leuven. She founded the Scaleup Centre at Vlerick and has 20 years of research experience in entrepreneurial finance, covering business angels, venture capital and crowdfunding. She is currently Field Editor in Entrepreneurial Finance at Journal of Business Venturing (FT 50) and also serves on the editorial board of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice. She is a board member of the Belgian business angel association BAN Vlaanderen.

   

• 

  Anita Quas

  Associate Professor of Corporate Finance,
  University of Milan

  Anita Quas is Associate Professor of Corporate Finance at University of Milan. She obtained her PhD at Politecnico di Milano and has previously worked as Innovation and Policy consultant at Technopolis group and as an associate professor at emlyon business school. She had visiting research experiences at Harvard Business School and the SPRU department of University of Sussex. She conducts research in the field of entrepreneurial finance and her area of expertise is governmental intervention in the venture capital industry. She published her research in international peer reviewed journals including Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, Research Policy

   

• 

  Panayiotis Ketikidis

  Vice President for Research & Innovation,
  CITY College, University of York

  Professor Panos Ketikidis is the Co-Founder of the Hellenic Business Angels Network (HeBAN) and Board Member of EBAN.

  Current position: Professor of Innovation and Technology, CITY College – Chairman of the South East European Research Center (SEERC) and Business Angel Investor.

  Professor Ketikidis has over 30 years of experience in management, education, innovation, research, and competitive research funding and very solid networks as a result of this experience. His expertise lie in (responsible) innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, triple helix, (impact) investment, regional development, supply chain management and health informatics. Prof. Ketikidis also served as President and Board member in several profit and non-profit associations supporting and mobilizing the knowledge triangle (research, business and education) to facilitate innovation. He holds a Ph.D. in Systems Science, Health Informatics from CITY University (UK).

Contact us at info@eban.org for more details!