Homepage News, Upcoming Events
Panel Discussion: What is the Shareholder Proposal Rule? & Why Might It Matter to Delaware?
December 11, 2025 | 12pm – 2pm
Exploring the Shareholder Proposal Rule & Delaware’s Corporate Franchise
At the Weinberg Center’s 25th Anniversary Gala, SEC Chair Paul Atkins invited Delaware to consider whether its state corporation law authorizes advisory shareholder proposals on non-governance topics—or whether they might properly be excluded under the SEC’s shareholder proposal rule. Chair Atkins warned that the rule has been stretched beyond its valid bounds by activists using it for matters other than corporate governance. Expressing concern that such uses deter companies from going or staying public, the SEC is revisiting its shareholder proposal rule.
The shareholder proposal rule, a longstanding feature of the federal proxy system, has rarely intersected with state corporation law, leaving many Delaware practitioners unfamiliar with its operation or implications. Yet this new focus on the intersection between federal rule and state law implicates Delaware’s corporate franchise, an important topic that the State of Delaware has recently asked the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration (IPA) to study. It is therefore timely to consider both the shareholder proposal rule and its significance in the context of Delaware’s corporate franchise.
To promote informed discussion over coming months, the Weinberg Center, in partnership with IPA, will convene a program of two panels: one to explain the shareholder proposal rule itself and another to put its significance in the context of Delaware’s corporate franchise.
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Homepage News, Upcoming Events
Webinar | Board Practices in 2025: Evolving Oversight and Composition
December 15, 2025 | 1pm – 2pm
The Weinberg Center’s thought leadership partner, The Conference Board, hosts a discussion with Lawrence Cunningham, Rich Fields, and Ariane Marchis-Mouren moderated by Brian Campbell.
Corporate boards are navigating heightened scrutiny, rapid technological disruption, and shifting expectations from investors, regulators, and society. Amid these pressures, board composition and governance practices have steadied but continue to evolve in measured ways as oversight structures adapt to digital, cybersecurity, and workforce risks.
Please join us for a discussion of The Conference Board’s latest benchmarking data and what it reveals about how corporate governance is evolving, and where boards are headed next.
Discussion topics will include:
- How board structures and committees are adapting to new oversight demands
- Trends in board composition, including the slowdown in board turnover
- Expanding skill sets in technology, human capital, and sustainability
- Forward-looking trends and expectations for 2026
Who should attend:
Current and prospective board members; CEOs; general counsel, chief legal officers, corporate secretaries, and other C-Suite executives; corporate attorneys and senior governance executives
Register Today!
Upcoming Events
The Weinberg Center has released its call for papers ahead of its 2026 IRRCi Research Paper Competition, an annual event on the scholarly corporate governance calendar.
2026 University of Delaware Weinberg Center/ECGI Corporate Governance Symposium and John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award Competition
The John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and the Department of Finance at the Lerner College of Business & Economics, University of Delaware, in collaboration with the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), will host an in-person academic symposium on Friday, March 6, 2026. We welcome all submissions broadly related to corporate governance. Up to three papers included in the symposium will be selected to each receive the 2026 John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award and a $10,000 prize. For past symposium programs and award winners, please visit the research paper competition webpage.
Both academic and practitioner submissions for the research paper competition are welcome.
The deadline for paper submissions is midnight, Eastern Standard Time, November 16, 2025. There is a non-refundable submission fee of $100 per paper. Please pay the submission fee by visiting the registration webpage. (If the link does not work, please copy and paste this link in your browser.) Please submit your papers to Nicole Rich at Weinberg-corp-gov@udel.edu, together with a copy of your payment receipt.
John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper $10,000 Award Competition Guidelines/Procedures
This research competition is the successor to the IRRCi Investor Research Paper Award, which had become a prominent award garnering significant attention amongst the investment community, academia and policymakers. The John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award, as its predecessor did, highlights innovative research.
Papers should be submitted using the following guidelines. Failure to comply with these guidelines may disqualify papers.
- Papers must not have been accepted for publication at the time of submission.
- Papers should be submitted with a cover page that includes the paper title, full name and affiliation of author(s), and a 100-250-word abstract.
- Please use the following format as the file name when you save your paper: Last name (all caps), underscore, shortened name of paper, period, pdf (e.g., DOE Shareholder Engagement.pdf).
If selected for the award or as a finalist, it is required that one of the paper’s authors be available to present the paper in-person at the Symposium on March 6, 2026.
General inquiries regarding the competition or the Symposium should be directed to Nicole Rich at Weinberg-corp-gov@udel.edu.
Please note that the selection of winners/finalists, if any, is at the sole discretion of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. The Weinberg Center fully anticipates awarding up to three $10,000 prizes but reserves the right to select no papers as winners in the event papers submitted do not meet the above guidelines and/or the Center does not believe any paper is worthy of the award.
Submit Your Paper Today
