Almost one hundred researchers and lecturers of 54 European business schools will meet at EAE Business School on February 26 and 27 to hold the EFMD Entrepreneurship Conference 2009.

The conference will be attended by representatives of 20 different countries, all of which belong to the EFMD – the world's most prestigious association of managerial training centres. The Finnish delegation is the largest, with ten attendants from six Finnish business schools. It is followed closely by the British delegation, with nine representatives from eight business schools, and the Danish delegation. The attending business schools include the Helsinki School of Economics, the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, the University of Applied Sciences of Switzerland and Oxford Brookes University. Spain's representatives will be from IESE Business School and EAE Business School.
 
Under the tag line The Role of Entrepreneurship Training for Tomorrow’s Society, managers will analyse the role of managerial training and its capacity for training entrepreneurs and managers of family businesses.
 
The Conference will be chaired by David Dinwoodie, General Manager of EAE Business School; the opening session will be led by Fernando Casado, managing director of the Instituto de la Empresa Familiar, and the first plenary meeting “Planning succession in family businesses” will be led by Joaquin Uriach, secretary general of Corporación Uriach.
 
On Thursday February 26 from 9 am, attendants will discuss issues such as the methods used in training entrepreneurs, training the next generation of owners / managers of family companies; entrepreneurial business education in European higher education and training social entrepreneurs.
 
David Dinwoodie, General Manager of EAE Business School has highlighted the importance of this meeting as it “provides the chance to discuss the training of family business people and entrepreneurs among researchers of the main European business schools in Barcelona, one of the world's capitals with the highest number of multinational century-old family companies and businesses”
 
The EFMD Entrepreneurship Conference has become the main annual European forum for the exchange of ideas related to business, innovation, small companies and family businesses.  The EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) is an international organisation formed by more than 650 companies belonging to academia, the business sector, the public sector and the consultancy sector from 75 different countries. This international network, which includes more than 450 business schools, provides a single forum for information, research, contact network and debate on innovation and the practice of business management. Its aims include: acting as a bridge between the leaders of business schools and companies; creating and disseminating knowledge with regard to success stories and trends, and influencing international governments and NGOs through lawyers and pressure groups.