Microfinance has become a large banking segment as well as a widely practiced development tool.
Presently several hundred million poor people have been provided with access to savings, loans,
insurance and payment services. However, at the same time there are still billions of people that
remain out of reach by microfinance providers. The present microfinance industry is confronted with
a broad range of dilemmas, controversies, and unsolved problems, and the debate about the
development effect of microfinance continues. This provides our motivation for the invitation to
researchers from all disciplines within social sciences and economics.
The aim of the European Research Conference on Microfinance is to be the World’s most important
meeting place of academics involved in microfinance research. The two former conferences
organized by the Centre for European Research in Microfinance (CERMi) at the University Libre De
Brussels, and by University of Groningen in the Netherlands have seen the turnout of several
hundred researchers, as well as many practitioners interested in academic research, from across the
globe. The upcoming conference is organized by the University of Agder in cooperation with the
European Microfinance Platform Research Action Group (www.emf-p.eu), CERMi (www.cermi.eu)
and University of Groningen (www.rug.nl/gsg).