Innovation and productivity: How strong is the connection? ‘Innovation’ is a much used (and abused) term employed to describe everything from flea collars for dogs[1] to electric cars. As a result, measuring innovation can be tricky, particularly in service sectors where firms’ relationships to customers are often individual and bespoke. Fortunately, the kind people at… Read more
Growth in the UK is slowing down as business investment declines amid Brexit uncertainty. Jobs growth too seems to be slowing particularly in scaling firms. As always, however, the UK’s entrepreneurial small-and-medium firms (SMEs) will play a key role in restoring future growth. But how should we ‘do’ entrepreneurship in the future? A recent research… Read more
Micro businesses, typically businesses with 9 employees or less, play an important role in stimulating innovation, employment and growth. Despite this, relatively little is known about this important segment of the business population as such businesses are often excluded from official surveys. This report published today presents the findings of a survey conducted on micro-businesses… Read more
The ERC published a new research paper today on job creation and destruction in the UK economy, based on new analysis of ONS data. The analysis, by Mark Hart and Neha Prashar, shows that established firms are already shedding jobs, and although employment is being buoyed by start-ups, these are prone to high failure rates…. Read more
The latest ERC Research Showcase event took place on 7th March at The Shard in London. There was a packed agenda full of updates on a variety of projects currently underway at the centre. The aim of the day was to present and discuss emerging findings with key stakeholders. A range of topics were covered, including… Read more
ERC research on regional distribution of fast-growing and high-growth firms and VC for women-led businesses highlighted in the Small Business Finance Markets Report 2019 launch by the British Business Bank this morning.
The UK’s efforts to boost productivity while ironing out regional inequalities in job creation may be fundamentally at odds, according to a study of so-called ‘gazelle’ firms. The findings, based on a study of 6.25m firms over a 17-year period by the ERC , shed new light on the spillover effects high-growth firms have on… Read more
The ERC are delighted to be involved in leading elements of the ‘Productivity from below: addressing the productivity challenges of microbusinesses‘ project, working with Monder Ram at CREME. Bringing together three leading research centres: the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) and City-REDI (Regional Economic Development Institute) CREME… Read more
Mark Hart contributed to an article on Forbes.com published today examining the labels used by and to describe business owners. Mark said “Not content with working out whether someone running a business is an entrepreneur or not we have now got a proliferation of labels to describe a particular demographic group the ‘entrepreneur’ is hailing… Read more
