Dates: March 5th and March 6th, 2026
Day 1: PhD workshop, 12 pm – 5 pm
Day 2: Conference, 9 am – 4 pm
Location: Columbia Business School campus, New York, NY.
Submission deadline: December 1, 2025
Submissions (papers and extended abstracts) should be sent to [email protected].
Details
We invite submissions to the 2026 Columbia Private Equity Research Conference, to be held in-person at the Columbia Business School campus on Thursday, March 5th, and Friday, March 6th, 2026. The conference aims to foster a rich dialogue between academic researchers, PhD students, and leading industry practitioners. Past agendas are available here.
The event will begin on Thursday with a PhD workshop (12:00 PM – 5:00 PM) dedicated to presentations by doctoral students, with discussions led by faculty. The second day, Friday (9:00 AM – 4:00 PM), will feature research presentations and discussions from academic researchers.
Submission Guidelines
We welcome submissions on all topics related to private equity, venture capital, and entrepreneurial finance. We are particularly interested in research that explores the expansion of access to private capital markets for individual investors. The plan is to dedicate a significant portion of the conference to this topic with practitioners.
To encourage the submission of promising research at various stages of development, we will accept both full papers and extended abstracts. Extended abstracts should be 3-5 pages and clearly outline the key research question, motivation, the data and methodology, and any preliminary findings. This format is ideal for authors seeking feedback on work-in-progress.
Please do not submit papers that have already been accepted for publication in a journal. Each selected paper or abstract will be assigned a discussant.
Logistics
Submissions should be sent to [email protected] by December 1, 2025.
PhD students should add “PhD Student” to the subject line of their submission. Each paper will be assigned a discussant.
The conference is made possible by the support from Columbia Business School and Finance Division. The organizers are Michael Ewens (Columbia) and Emmanuel Yimfor (Columbia). The program committee includes the co-organizers, Neroli Austin (University of Michigan), Arthur Korteweg (USC Marshall), Song Ma (Yale), Richard Townsend (USCD Rady) and Ayako Yasuda (UC Davis).
The conference will cover meals for all presenters and discussants. The conference will provide reduced-rate hotel rooms to be paid for by the faculty participants. PhD students are provided a $700 travel stipend and three-night hotels.