The European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) is an international scientific non-profit association that provides a forum for debate and dialogue between academics, legislators and practitioners. Focusing on major corporate governance issues, its primary role is to undertake, commission and disseminate research on corporate governance.

Since its foundation in 2002, the Institute has established itself as the largest and most prestigious group of academics working in the field of corporate governance in the world.  It has as its research members the most prominent researchers in economics, finance and law in both Europe and North America.  It has a growing base of individual and corporate practitioners with a shared interest in corporate governance. It has organised high profile conferences that have been at the forefront of academic debate and at the top of the policy agenda.  It has exposed leading practitioners and policymakers in Europe and across the Atlantic to the latest academic thinking and analysis; and it has demonstrated that it has the managerial capabilities to organise activities and events of the highest quality and to the highest standards.

Over this period, the ECGI’s activities have been funded by membership subscriptions and by fees for research and training projects commissioned by third parties. Having laid the foundation for the establishment of an institution of unsurpassed academic excellence and policy relevance, the ECGI Board, supported by its members, has been involved in detailed discussions with a number of parties with a view to creating a Research Foundation with sufficient additional resources to fund an institution with a physical as well as an intellectual presence and a research agenda that will further guide policy in Europe over the current century. This is especially relevant in the current economic and business climate where issues of corporate governance have assumed a higher importance in the political policy agenda.

The ECGI has found in the University of Luxembourg a strategic partner with the initiative, expertise and resources to help achieve these challenging goals. The agreement signed in Luxembourg on Thursday, 18th June 2009 sets out the details of this new strategic partnership including both administrative and financial arrangements for a fund-raising campaign and the ongoing management and administration of the Foundation and the ECGI itself.

Further details were made available in a press release issued jointly by the ECGI and the University of Luxembourg on 18th June. See English version, French or German 'convenience' translations.