History of the Academy

Huelva, summer 1982 (from left to right: name and city of origin).

At Santa María de la Rábida (now the International University of Andalusia – UNIA), located in Huelva (Spain), in the summer of 1982, and during the holding of the III Colloquia on Business Studies, the need to set up an association was widely debated – a formal body endowed with legal personality that would give shape to the concern that a group of university professors of the time felt about the need to organise. Developing the idea further, the aim was to create a non-profit organisation that would design and channel regular gatherings between teachers and researchers in economics, and that would allow the convergence of individual progress in training and research in order to collectively advance the areas of knowledge of what is known as Business Economics.

After the first faltering steps, and in the light of certain failed attempts due to the difficulties typical of an era with scarce resources in terms of communication, dissemination, bibliographic sources, etc., it was in 1985 that Dr. Camilo Prado Freire took the helm of the initiative and summoned a group of university full professors to a meeting in Vigo, specifically at the Hotel Bahía, from which the formal seed of the association would emerge. Among other decisions, the proposal for a first Board of Directors, chaired by Camilo Prado himself, was agreed upon; responsibilities and tasks in different areas were assumed; and the process to give the association structure and legal form was set in motion. It was born under the name of the Spanish Association of Management and Business Economics (AEDEM), becoming ‘European’ and an ‘Academy’ years later.

The attendees at this meeting were: Dr. Camilo Prado Freire (University of Vigo), Dr. Luis Tomás Díez de Castro (Complutense University of Madrid), Dr. Manuel Ortigueira Bouzada (University of Seville), Dr. Jaime Gil Aluja (University of Barcelona), Dr. Emilio Soldevilla García (University of the Basque Country), Dr. Alvaro Cuervo García (Complutense University of Madrid), Dr. Enrique Martín Armario (University of Seville), Dr. Ignacio Cuadra Echaide (University of Málaga), and Dr. Santiago García Echevarría (University of Alcalá de Henares). It was this group that would form AEDEM's first management and decision-making body, and thanks to whose drive and determination we are, today, what we are.

Indeed, as a result of their progress, the I Annual Conference was held in the town of Ojén (Málaga) in 1987, in the facilities that, surrounded by nature, the Hanns Seidel Foundation made available for that purpose. The organisation of the event was handled by the Department of Business Economics of the University of Seville. After the success of this first edition, it was agreed to hold this meeting periodically, while from 1992 a new international version would be added. In parallel, in 1988, the Revista de Economía de la Empresa (Business Economics Journal) was created, published quarterly, to provide written support for the research progress of the associate professors.