In 2007 BeCeFi launched the BeCeFi Academic Award. A jury of experts annually awards a prize to four laureates that contributed to the research on SME financing in Belgium. In 2009 the total prize money amounts to 7500 euro.

The papers for the BeCeFi Academic Award 2010 have to be submitted by the supervisors between July 15th 2010 and October 15th 2010.

If you want more information on the conditions to participate, you can download the rules of the "BeCeFi Academic Award 2010" by clicking one of the following links: Rules and regulations in Dutch and in French.

Laureats of the BeCeFi Academic Award 2009:

• Doctorate thesis : firt place - Nathalie Crutzen ( HEC-Université de Liège) : "Essays on the Prevention of Small Business Failure: Taxonomy and Validation of Five explanatory Business Falure Patterns (EBFPs)"

  Nathalie Crutzen's thesis is in two parts. The first analyses the causes of SME and self-employed insolvencies/bankruptcies. The author thus manages to group the companies according to five great causes of insolvency (divided into several subcategories). The author seeks in the second part to retrace the process that has led to insolvencies of this kind.

• Doctorate thesis: Second place - Vincent Molly (Universiteit Antwerpen): "The heterogeneity of the family business: Goal orientation, intergenerational differences and succession"

  Vincent Molly's thesis focuses on a particular element from the world of SMEs: family businesses. More particularly, it studies the impact on the company's balance sheet structure and growth of property transfers from one generation to the next.

• Working paper: Lutgarde Laureys & Fiene Biesbrouck (Hogeschool Gent): " Projectmatig Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Naar een optimale kredietrelatie tussen banken en KMO's."

  The working paper's objective is to give advice to companies (SMEs) for the purpose of optimising their applications to banks for loans. To do this, the author has interviewed various bank representatives (salesmen, analysts, account managers, and credit committee members) in order to learn about their quantitative and qualitative criteria for appraising an SME loan application file. Conversely, the author has questioned a series of SMEs about their perception of their credit relations with banks, their preparation of the loan application and their way of negotiating this bank credit.

• Thesis : Aurélie Rodeyns et Glenn Verbraeken (Universiteit Gent ): "Financieringsbeslissingen doorheen het falingspad"

The subject addressed by Aurélie Rodeyns and Glenn Verbraeken retraces the path of the companies' financial and operating decisions during the years prior to their insolvencies. On the basis of a sample of more than 5,000 SME annual accounts, the authors have analysed the degradation of various balance sheet items.