Research carried out by John Kitching, Professor David Smallbone, Mirela Xheneti of the Small Business Research Centre at Kingston Business School has been awarded the Best Conference Paper 2009 by the ISBE (Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship), which was sponsored by Liverpool Vision.

The SBRC carried out extensive research, entitled 'Have Small Businesses Beaten the Recession?', to see whether or not small businesses have beaten, what has been labelled the worst recession since the great depression of the 1930s. By broadening our understanding of how recession conditions shape small business activities and performance, the paper contributes knowledge that will be of use to business owners, researchers and policy makers.