It has often been suggested that smaller firms – especially more risk averse family-owned firms – may be reluctant to invest in new technologies or innovation. The Evolve Digital scheme, a business support programme for family run businesses, was developed through 2019 to address this issue. Evolve Digital was implemented as a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)… Read more
On a sunny morning on 16th June, we welcomed delegates back to The Shard for our first in-person ERC State of Small Business Britain conference since 2019. The conference, which was chaired this year by Lucy Armstrong, focused on the theme of the ‘triple transition’, or the question of how moves towards net zero and… Read more
UK exports suffered £12.4bn decline in 2021, largely attributed to non-tariff measures – new research Professor Jun Du and Dr Oleksandr Shepotylo from Aston University analysed the effects of the end of the Brexit transition period on UK exports This equals to a nearly 16% of UK total exports in the first half of 2019… Read more
Published today – the final episode of our first podcast series. ERC Director Stephen Roper is joined by by Jill Pay, Chair of The Gender Index; Yvonne Greeves, Director of Women in Business at the NatWest Group; and Julie Kapsalis, Chair of Coast to Capital LEP reflecting on the important theme of ‘women and enterprise’.
Who do you think of when you think of an Entrepreneur? In the latest blog published today by NICRE , Stephen Roper, Deputy Director , ERC and Co-Director , NICRE dispels the ‘urban’ image many may conjure up by exploring findings that entreprenuership is actually more common in rural rather than urban areas. Read the… Read more
Sub-standard infrastructure in rural areas – particularly lack of quality broadband – is affecting businesses’ ability to be resilient and bounce back from adversity, according to a major survey from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE). Around a third of rural enterprises in the North East, South West and West Midlands, compared to a… Read more
In the 10th edition of the Exploring Enterprise podcast series from the Enterprise Research Centre, Mark Hart is joined by Philip King, previously the Small Business Commissioner and responsible for advising small businesses on their trading relationships and Ant Persse, Chief Executive of Optimum Finance, a specialist invoice finance company and newly established Saltare Technologies Limited, a… Read more
The Business Desk : Social Enterprises vital to post COVID-19 recovery Financial Times: Starting a business in the midst of a pandemic The Times: Number of new companies set up this year is likely to break record The Times: How small businesses can get one over the big boys in Zoom revolution IPSE: IPSE sets out… Read more
Research by Serdal Ozusaglam, Stephen Roper and Neha Prashar using the data from the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) found there are higher levels in rural areas than in urban. Entrepreneurial activity – creating and developing a new business – provides the opportunity for new wealth creation in a community and creates the potential for new employment. In… Read more
Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC and Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Annual Population Surveys to examine the impact COVID-19 has had on entrepreneurship in the UK. This blog highlights the work of a new project “Lifting the Lid on Enterprise Diversity & Growth… Read more
