The growth of CICF has also helped to form a strong and expanding community of scholars committed to high quality, open, and frontier research in financial economics. Since its early years, there has been an expanding and deepening desire to better organize this community, to shape and pursue its vision and interest, and to sustain its future development, including the conference and beyond.

Following more intensive deliberations since last year’s conference, a working group has been formed to work on this initiative, which consists of Hui Chen, Zhiguo He, Kewei Hou, Jiang Wang, Neng Wang and Wei Xiong.

Over the past year, the working group has completed the registration of a charitable entity in Hong Kong as the legal and operational structure to support the CICF conference, the community behind it and its future interests. Its current name is CICF Association, with its immediate focus on the CICF conference.

The association will be formally launched at its inaugural meeting at this year’s CICF conference in Hong Kong (June 27, 2026). It is open to all who support the association’s vision.