The 25th Anniversary RENT Conference took place in Bodo, Norway, on November 16-18, 2011. The conference was hosted by University of Nordland and Nordland Research Institute, and co-organised by ECSB and EIASM. The main theme for the conference was “Entrepreneurial and Business and Society”.

The occasion was celebrated with the publication of a booklet recalling those people and events that have led to growth of this organisation. During the history of RENT it has changed and developed in a way that the conference itself is no longer just a conference as it now features many additional activities such as the Policy Forum, the Doctoral Consortium, the Post-Doc Roundtable and the Case Writing Workshop. Additionally, many interesting ECSB initiatives and activities took place at the conference, e.g. the kick-off of the ECSB Mentoring Programme and the annual ECSB country VP meeting.

The atmosphere during the conference was warm and cosy and the attendees experienced many interesting speeches, plenary and track sessions from the field of entrepreneurship and small business research. Moreover, through a live streaming, the people who had missed the conference this year, had a change to feel and listen the opening plenary, entrepreneurship panel as well as a key note speech. The material is still available on the ECSB website.

Two annual prizes were awarded as follows:

• Jose Maria Veciana Best Paper Award – Louise Chalkley
• ECSB / USASBE / ICSB Best Doctoral Award – Eva Kasperová

Congratulations to the winners!

Two long served members of ECBS Board, Professor Antti Paasio and Professor Friederike Welter were awarded with the prestigious position of ECSB Fellow. With the nomination they joined the selected group of ECSB Fellows Jose Maria Veciana, Zoltan Roman, Roy Thurik, David Smallbone, Hans Crijns (Chair of Fellows) and Hans Landström. Warm congratulations to Antti and Friederike!

Moreover, a rotation took place among ECSB Board, since four Board members’ term of office ran out (Antti Paasio, Friederike Welter, Miroslav Rebernik and Anita van Gils) and three new Board members (Robert Blackburn, Cristina Diaz and Silke Tegtmeier) started their three-year long term of office. Many thanks to Antti, Friederike, Miroslav and Anita; and congratulations and welcome Robert, Cristina and Silke!

The eight Inter-RENT publication was again launched at the RENT conference. The publication was edited by Ulla Hytti and was titled as “Qualitative Approaches in Entrepreneurship Research”.

The annual general meeting was held in conjunction with the conference closing session and was run by the President of ECSB, Thomas Cooney, who, at the end of the AGM handed over the ECSB presidency to Professor Luca Iandoli, who will serve as a President of ECSB for the next two years. Also, the nomination of the President-Elect, Associate Professor Helle Neergaard, was ratified by the AGM.

See further information.