IRB Women's Sevens World Series
Current season, competition or edition: 2016–17 World Rugby Women's Sevens
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| Sport | Rugby union |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 |
| No. of teams | 12 |
| Country | Worldwide |
| Most recent champion(s) |
 Australia
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| Most titles |
 New Zealand (3) |
The World Rugby Women's Sevens Series, known as the HSBC Women's World Rugby Sevens Series for sponsorship reasons, is a series of international rugby union sevens tournaments for women's national teams run by World Rugby. The inaugural series was held in 2012–13 as the successor to the IRB Women's Sevens Challenge Cup held the previous season.
The series, the women's counterpart to the HSBC World Sevens Series, provides elite-level women's competition between rugby nations. As with the men's Sevens World Series, teams compete for the title by accumulating points based on their finishing position in each tournament.
The first 2012–13 series consisted of four tournaments on three continents. The first two events were hosted by the United Arab Emirates (specifically Dubai) and the United States, both of which host events in the men's version. The other two events were hosted by China and the Netherlands.
For the second series in 2013–14, five tournaments took place; a sixth had initially been announced, but never materialized. All nations that hosted events in 2012–13 hosted in the second season, with the added event hosted by Brazil.
The series expanded to six events for 2014–15. The Dubai, Brazil, USA, and Netherlands events remained on the schedule. China was not on the 2014–15 schedule. New rounds of the series were launched in Canada (specifically in Greater Victoria) and London. Initially, the 2015–16 series was announced with only four events, with London and the Netherlands dropping from the schedule, but a fifth event was eventually added, hosted by France (specifically in Clermont-Ferrand).
For the 2016–17 season, six tournaments have been confirmed.
Unlike the men's Sevens Series, which has enjoyed title sponsorship by banking giant HSBC in recent years, the Women's Sevens Series did not have a title sponsor until 2015–16. HSBC is now the title sponsor of both the men's and women's series.
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